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THE  FRANCE  OF  TODAY 


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THE 

FRANCE  OF  TODAY 


BARRETT  WENDELL 

Profassor  ot  English  at  Harrard  College,  Sometime  Clark  Lecturer  at  Trinitir 

College,  Cambridge,  and  First  Lecturer  on  the  Hyde  Foundation 

at  the  Sorbonne  and  other  French  Univenitiea 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 

1918 


>^C3  3 


COPTEIGHT,  1907,  BT 

Charles  Scribner's  Sons 


Published  September,  1907 

Beprinted  October  and  December,  1901 

March*  1908:  January.  1909 

November,  1912;  October,  1913 

April,  June,  November,  1910 

January,  1918 


^'S^f.f.^H  ] 


NOTE  TO  THE  SECOND  EDITION 

The  fact  that  this  book  has  had  the  good 
fortune  to  reach  a  new  edition  enables  me  to 
correct  certain  errors  concerning  the  university 
system,  into  which,  at  least  apparently,  I  had 
fallen.  This  I  may  best  do  by  paraphrasing 
letters  from  French  friends  who  have  had  the 
kindness  to  point  them  out. 

On  page  10,  I  hastily  grouped  together  the 
College  de  France,  the  Ecole  Normale  and  the 
Ecole  Libre  des  Sciences  Politiques.  My  inten- 
tion was  merely  to  imply  that  these  establish- 
ments were,  each  in  its  own  way,  apart  from  the 
general  university  system  which  I  was  trying  to 
expound.  The  grouping  of  them  together  was 
at  best  infelicitous;  and  certainly  the  subse- 
quent comments  on  them  were,  in  various  ways, 
mistaken. 

The  Ecole  Libre  des  Sciences  Politiques,  writes 
one  friend,  is  completely  independent  of  the 
State.  There  is  no  need  that  its  professors  have 
any  university  degree  whatever.  The  authorities 
of  the  school  choose  any  one  whom  they  deem 
fit,  and  hold  this  freedom  of  choice  among  the 
chief  elements  of  their  strength.  For  it  permits 
them  to  count  among  their  instructors  men  of 

^  /-w^O  vi  f7  M* 


vi    NOTE  TO  THE  SECOND  EDITION 

action — officials,  writers,  economists,  politicians, 
bankers,  and  the  like — who  have  proved  their 
personal  distinction  and  importance  by  other 
means  than  the  winning  of  diplomas. 

This  school,  another  friend  writes,  ought  in 
no  wise  to  be  grouped  with  the  two  others;  for 
it  is  completely  private,  and  in  its  private  capac- 
ity it  grants  degrees,  which  have  moral,  though 
unofficial,  weight. 

With  the  College  de  France  and  the  Ecole  Nor- 
male  this  is  not  the  case,  he  goes  on.  The  Ecole 
Normale  Superieure — near  the  Pantheon — is 
part  of  the  university  system.  It  is  an  estab- 
lishment where  young  men  are  admitted,  after 
examinations,  to  prepare  for  secondary  teaching. 
While  at  the  school  they  pass  their  examinations 
for  the  degree  oUicenciey — though  not  at  the  school 
itself,  but  before  the  university  faculties.  Then, 
on  leaving  the  school,  they  present  themselves  in 
competition — something  more  than  an  examina- 
tion— for  the  agregation.^  There  are  many  kinds  of 
agregation — in  letters,  in  history,  in  modern  lan- 
guages, in  physical  science,  in  natural  science,  in 
mathematics,  etc. — and  the  winning  of  the  title  of 
agrege  is  difficult.  For  example,  when  only  ten 
places  are  open  for  competition,  thirty  candidates  or 
more — ahesidy  licendes — ^may  present  themselves. 
The  successful  ones  are  eligible  to  give  secondary 


NOTE  TO  THE  SECOND  EDITION 


vu 


instruction,  but  not  the  highest.  To  become  a 
member  of  a  faculty — ^to  give  the  highest  instruc- 
tion, which  another  correspondent  adds  is  some- 
times enviously  described  as  tertiary — the  degree 
of  doctor  is  requisite;  and  this  degree  is  not  com- 
petitive, but  purely  a  matter  of  learning. 

On  the  other  hand,  a  member  of  the  Institut 
is  eligible  for  any  appointment  whatever.  This 
title  dispenses  with  all  others.  A  member  of  the 
Institute  even  though  neither  doctor,  agrege,  nor 
licencie\  might  perfectly  well  be  a  full  professor 
at  the  Sorbonne.  Incidentally,  my  correspond- 
ent adds,  the  title  of  Professor^  by  itself,  is  insig- 
nificant— as  indeed  is  the  case  in  America. 
Every  master  of  a  lycee  or  a  collegCy  for  example, 
holds  it  as  a  matter  of  course. 

As  to  the  College  de  Francey  he  goes  on,  it  has 
nothing  in  common  either  with  the  Ecole  Libre 
des  Sciences  Politiques,  or  with  the  £cole  Normale 
Superieure — itself  an  establishment  which  must 
be  clearly  distinguished  from  the  separate  normal 
schools,  for  men  and  for  women,where  school  teach- 
ers are  trained  in  every  provincial  university.  Scien- 
tifically— in  point  of  exact  scholarship,  whether 
in  letters  or  in  science — the  College  de  France,  he 
tells  me,  is  the  highest  institution  of  instruction  in 
France.  Its  purpose  is  to  advance  learning,  as 
well  as  to  prepare  for  the  highest  examinations. 


viii  NOTE  TO  THE  SECOND  EDITION 

The  professors  are  absolutely  free,  within  the 
limits  of  their  chairs,  to  treat  any  part  of  their 
subjects,  no  matter  how  limited  or  minute,  pro- 
vided that  they  go  to  the  bottom  of  it.  A  professor 
of  the  languages  and  literature  of  Southern  Eu- 
rope, for  example,  may  confine  himself  at  one 
time  to  Dante,  at  another  to  Proven9al  grammar, 
and  so  on.  The  chief  characteristic  of  the  Collhge 
de  France^  in  fact,  is  this  absolute  individual  in- 
dependence of  its  professors.  Furthermore,  it 
grants  no  degrees,  and  demands  none  as  requi- 
site for  its  professorships.  A  man  who  holds  only 
the  degree  of  bachelor,  which  would  not  regu- 
larly entitle  him  to  give  even  secondary  instruc- 
tion, may,  if  otherwise  competent,  be  appointed 
professor  there. 

Again,  it  appears  that  I  was  mistaken  in  sup- 
posing that  official  inspectors  at  present  concern 
themselves  with  the  higher  instruction.  They 
used  to;  but  their  duties  are  now  confined  to 
primary  and  to  secondary  schools.  In  any  event, 
my  correspondent  adds,  they  would  have  had  no 
right  to  inspect  the  College  de  France^  where 
more  than  half  the  professors  are  members  of 
the  Institut 

A  propos  of  the  Institute  he  goes  on,  one 
might  well  have  pointed  out  that  the  Academie 
Frangaise  is  at  present  less  eminent  in  the  matter 


NOTE  TO  THE  SECOND  EDITION    ix 

of  erudition  than  its  less  widely  celebrated  fel- 
lows. Its  chief  official  function  is  to  prepare  a 
dictionary — a  task  for  which  it  has  no  exceptional 
philological  equipment.  Meanwhile  the  other 
academies — of  Inscriptions  et  Belles  LettreSy  of 
ScienceSy  and  so  on — are  extremely  active,  and 
have  great  influence  on  the  progress  of  learning. 

Another  correspondent  has  had  the  kindness 
to  show  me  mistaken  in  supposing  (p.  12)  that  a 
certificate  of  primary  instruction  is  needful  for 
admission  to  a  lyc^e  or  a  college.  At  present,  it 
seems,  these  institutions  themselves  give  primary 
instruction  as  well  as  secondary. 

It  is  hardly  conceivable  that  these  errors  are 
all  which  have  escaped  my  notice,  or  my  obser- 
vation. On  the  whole,  however,  my  correspond- 
ents have  told  me  that  the  outlines  of  my  treat- 
ment, even  of  the  universities,  seem  to  them  true. 
When  it  comes  to  the  later  chapters,  which  con- 
cern questions  of  opinion  rather  than  of  fact, 
they  have  generally  been  agreed  that,  while  my 
point  of  view  must  evidently  be  that  of  a  foreign 
friend,  and  therefore  my  opinions  must  be  de- 
batable, my  comments  are  intelligible,  suggestive, 
and  earnestly  sympathetic.  B,  W. 

Boston,  16  February,  1908. 


CONTENTS 

Page 

I.   The  Universities 1 

II.   The  Structure  of  Society    .    .  47 

III.  The  Family 101 

IV.  The  French  Temperament    .     .  145 

V.   The  Relation  of  Literature  to 

Life 191 

VI.   The  Question  of  Religion    .     .  239 

VII.   The  Revolution  and  Its  Effects  292 

VIII.   The  Republic  and  Democracy    .  338 


THE  FRANCE  OF  TODAY 

I 

THE  UNIVERSITIES 

IN  the  autumn  of  1904  I  found  myself  unex- 
pectedly charged  with  the  pleasant  duty  of 
what  may  be  described  as  an  academic  mis- 
sion to  France.  The  authorities  of  Harvard 
University  were  so  kind  as  to  make  me  the  first 
of  the  representatives  whom  they  have  been  in- 
vited to  send,  year  by  year,  to  the  Sorbonne 
and  to  other  French  universities  for  the  purpose 
of  lecturing  about  America.  At  the  moment 
I  knew  so  little  of  the  university  system  in 
which  I  was  to  have  a  temporary  status  that  I 
was  unaware   of  my  ignorance. 

One  of  my  first  calls  in  Paris  began  to  en- 
lighten me.  A  professor  of  the  Sorbonne,  who 
had  sent  me  Mendly  word  of  when  I  might  find 
him  at  home,  phrased  his  welcome  in  terms  which 
meant  more  than  I  quite  understood  at  first; 
for  he  addressed  me  as  "cher  collogue,"  thus 
assuring  me  that,  for  the  while,  I  was  his  aca- 
demic equal.  Something  of  what  this  involved, 
concerning  the  dignity  and  the  responsibility  of 


2  THlii  FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

my  position,  he  soon  proceeded  to  explain  in  a 
pleasantly  precise  way. 

The  opening  scene  of  our  interview  was  brief 
and  cordially  formal.  It  ended  with  an  invita- 
tion to  pass  from  the  salon  where  I  had  been 
received  into  the  professor's  study.  This  proved 
to  be  a  snug  library  full  of  books  and  papers, 
and  remarkable  chiefly  for  a  blackboard  on  which 
was  sketched  a  somewhat  complicated  diagram, 
resembling  the  plans  of  Hell,  Purgatory  and 
Paradise  to  be  found  in  most  editions  of  the 
"Divine  Comedy."  This  likeness,  indeed,  was 
so  marked  that,  forgetting  what  my  friend's 
special  branch  of  learning  might  be,  I  was  dis- 
posed to  take  for  granted  that  he  was  occupied 
with  some  minute  study  of  Dante.  In  fact,  it 
presently  appeared,  this  impressive  diagram  had 
been  ingeniously  devised  for  my  personal  benefit 
Rightly  assuming  that  I  could  not  find  my  way 
in  France  without  a  clear  knowledge  of  where  I 
belonged  there,  he  had  prepared  it  to  illustrate  a 
concise  little  discourse  on  the  present  structure 
and  constitution  of  the  French  universities.  His 
subject,  I  may  add,  proved  really  analogous  to 
Dante's  scheme  of  futurity.  For  in  French  uni- 
versities—  and  for  that  matter  one  is  tempted 
to  say  throughout  French  society  —  everyone 
seems  to  have  a  place  as  definite  as  that  of  any 


THE   UNIVERSITIES  8 

denizen  of  any  circle  in  all  the  hundred  cantos. 
My  own  —  obviously  unusual  —  began  to  define 
itself  while  my  friend,  chalk  in  hand,  proceeded 
with  his  exposition  ;  and  with  the  process  came 
to  me  my  first  clear  conception  of  the  extraor- 
dinarily systematic  nature  of  the  surroundings 
amid  which  I  was  to  find  my  way  during  the 
months  to  come,  and  of  the  precise  point  of 
view  from  which  I  was  to  observe  other  aspects 
of  French  life. 

The  whole  educational  system  of  modern 
France,  as  my  friend's  diagram  instantly  and 
constantly  reminded  me,  is  completely  central- 
ized. It  is  as  much  a  unit  as  is  the  public-school 
system  of  any  American  city.  From  beginning 
to  end,  it  is  controlled  by  one  single  organization, 
which  has  for  its  official  centre  the  Ministry  of 
Public  Instruction,  in  Paris.  At  its  head  is  the 
Minister  of  Public  Instruction. 

As  everyone  knows,  however,  the  Minister  of 
Public  Instruction  is  a  member  of  the  cabinet. 
Under  the  parliamentary  system  of  government, 
this  involves  two  consequences :  he  is  compelled 
to  attend  not  only  his  cabinet  meetings,  but  also 
the  regular  sessions  of  the  legislative  body  of 
which  he  is  a  member;  and  at  any  moment  a 
change  in  the  government  may  displace  him. 
The  Minister,  accordingly,  though  nominally  and 


4  THE  FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

officially  the  head  of  the  whole  educational  sys- 
tem, and  ex  officio  Rector  of  the  University  of 
Paris,  has  other  business,  of  more  immediate  im- 
portance, as  the  representative,  in  both  legislative 
and  executive  councils,  of  the  interests  committed 
to  his  charge.  So  far  as  the  duties  of  his  office 
concern  the  actual  conduct  of  French  education, 
they  are  consequently  performed  by  permanent 
officers,  nominally  his  lieutenants,  who  have  their 
offices  in  the  building  of  the  Ministry.  Of  these 
officers,  three  —  independent  of  each  other  —  are 
virtually  supreme,  each  in  his  own  field.  These 
are  the  Directors  of  the  three  distinct  phases 
of  education  throughout  the  country  —  primary, 
secondary,  and  superior.  The  true  head  of  the 
University  of  Paris,  the  while,  is  not  the  Minis- 
ter, who  bears  the  official  title  of  Rector,  but  the 
Vice-Rector,  whose  tenure  of  office  is  not  dis- 
turbed by  changes  in  the  government. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  University  of  Paris 
remains  what  it  has  been  for  centuries  —  by  far 
the  most  important  centre  of  French  scholarship, 
and  one  of  the  two  or  three  most  important 
centres  of  scholarship  in  the  world.  Constitu- 
tionally, however,  this  predominance  is  no  longer 
recognized.  In  theory  the  University  of  Paris  is 
only  one  of  some  fifteen  or  sixteen  universities 
which  together  control  the  entire  educational 


THE  UNIVERSITIES  5 

system  of  France,  much  as  bishoprics  control 
"an  ecclesiastical  system.  There  are  educational 
maps  of  France  on  which  the  boundaries  of  the 
universities  are  as  definite  as  those  of  the  States 
in  our  American  Union ;  and  like  our  States,  the 
French  universities  are  independent  of  one  an- 
other, each  sovereign  within  its  hmits,  and  are 
united  only  in  their  subjection  to  a  common 
central  authority.  In  principle,  what  is  true  of 
one  is  true  of  aU ;  the  hegemony  of  Paris  is  at 
this  moment  only  a  tradition.  It  is  a  tradition, 
however,  of  such  immemorial  and  indefinite 
strength  and  endurance  that  the  Vice-Rector  of 
the  University  of  Paris,  though  nominally  of 
slightly  lower  rank  than  the  rectors  of  provincial 
universities,  is  actually  the  most  powerful  official 
in  the  whole  educational  system.  His  immedi- 
ate contact  with  the  Directors  of  all  three  grades 
of  education  makes  him,  in  practice,  the  most 
influential  personage  of  the  whole  organization. 

Of  the  whole  organization,  we  must  remem- 
ber. For  the  most  salient  difference  between  the 
French  system  of  education  and  the  systems 
prevalent  in  England  and  in  America  springs 
from  the  fact  that  the  rector  of  a  French  uni- 
versity is  the  presiding  officer  not  only  of  the 
higher  educational  bodies  under  his  charge,  but 
of  the  secondary  and  the  primary  instruction  as 


6  THE  FRANCE   OF   TODAY 

well.  Within  the  geographical  limits  of  his  uni- 
versity, he  performs  virtually  all  the  duties  of  the 
1  Minister  of  Public  Instruction  ;  and  he  is  accord- 
ingly in  direct  communication  with  all  three  of 
the  Directors  of  Education — primary,  secondary, 
and  superior.  Through  them  he  is  the  official 
means  of  communication  between  his  university 
and  the  Minister,  who  is  nominally  lord  of  all. 

Each  university,  in  fact,  controls  education 
in  all  its  stages.  There  is  everywhere  a  system 
of  primary  schools,  where  elementary  education 
is  compulsory  for  children.  There  is  everywhere 
a  system  of  secondary  schools  —  generally  called 
lycees  or  colleges  —  where  instruction  in  letters 
or  in  science  is  carried  to  a  point  about  equiva- 
lent to  that  required  for  admission  to  a  well- 
estabUshed  American  college  of  the  better  sort. 
And  in  each  university  of  France  there  are  four 
faculties  of  superior  or  higher  instruction :  the 
"Taculties  of  letters,  of  science,  of  law,  and  of 
J  medicine.  Generally,  as  in  Paris,  these  faculties 
have  their  seats  in  the  same  town  ;  but  this  is  not 
necessarily  the  case.  In  at  least  one  instance  a 
faculty  of  science  and  a  faculty  of  letters  of  the 
same  university  are  situated  in  separate  cities 
some  little  distance  apart  —  Marseilles  and  Aix. 
Every  university,  however,  must  possess  all  four 
faculties,  each  under  the  presidency  of  a  dean. 


THE   UNIVERSITIES  7 

And  at  a  few  universities  there  was,  until  very 
lately,  a  fifth  faculty  —  of  Protestant  theology. 
For  obvious  ecclesiastical  reasons  the  historic 
faculties  of  orthodox  Catholic  theology  cannot 
fall  within  the  system.  To  extremely  conser- 
vative minds,  accordingly,  particularly  in  the 
provinces,  the  present  principles  of  the  French 
universities  cannot  help  seeming  in  some  degree 
anticlerical. 

The  faculties  of  higher  education,  though  nom- 
inally the  chief  bodies  under  the  presidency  of 
the  rectors,  appear,  in  point  of  fact,  to  be  more 
nearly  autonomous  than  you  would  suppose. 
Except  in  Paris,  so  far  as  my  observation  went, 
the  rectors  seemed  more  concerned  with  ques- 
tions of  secondary  education  than  with  those  of 
the  higher  —  spending  a  good  deal  of  their  time 
in  travelling  about  their  jurisdictions,  and  exam- 
ining the  condition  of  schools,  much  as  con- 
scientious bishops  might  keep  their  eyes  on  the 
outlying  regions  of  their  dioceses,  and  leave 
their  cathedrals  to  the  care  of  trustworthy  chap- 
ters. But  in  all  cases  the  rector  of  a  university 
is  the  responsible  head  of  all  education;  and, 
as  we  have  seen,  he  is  the  regular  medium  of 
communication  between  his  jurisdiction  and  the 
Ministry  of  Public  Instruction. 

This  state  of  things  might  evidently  put  in 


8  THE  FRANCE  OF  TODAY 

his  hands  a  degree  of  power  virtually  autocratic. 
For  the  rest  a  rector  —  whatever  his  personal 
integrity,  which  may  be  confidently  presumed  — 
is  after  all  a  fallible  human  being.  In  conse- 
quence, so  far  as  his  reports  deal  with  the  actual 
state  of  the  instruction  in  his  charge,  and  partic- 
ularly with  the  character  and  the  skill  of  indi- 
vidual instructors,  high  and  low,  they  are  kept  in 
check  by  a  system  of  regular  inspection,  centred 
in  the  Ministry  at  Paris.  A  considerable  corps 
of  official  Inspectors  are  always  engaged  in  visit- 
ing the  universities  throughout  France.  They 
have  the  right  of  access  everywhere  ;  and,  though 
such  of  them  as  I  happened  to  meet  were  de- 
lightful people,  their  visitations  are  naturally 
objects  of  a  certain  terror.  For  each  visit  re- 
sults in  an  official  report,  duly  filed  at  the  Min- 
istry ;  and  on  these  reports,  taken  in  conjunction 
with  those  of  the  rectors,  hang  the  professional 
prospects  of  every  teacher  from  Flanders  to 
Spain  and  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Alps.  Inci- 
dentally, it  seems  probable  that  the  rectors  them- 
selves are  objects  of  a  supervision  as  close  as  any 
applied  to  their  subordinates,  of  whatever  rank. 

How  far  this  system  of  record  is  carried  may 
be  inferred  from  my  own  experience.  In  the 
course  of  my  duties  I  had  occasion  to  call  sev- 
eral times  on  the  Director  of  Higher  Education. 


THE  UNIVERSITIES  9 

In  each  instance,  when  I  was  ushered  into  his 
presence,  I  found  him  seated  at  his  desk  with 
an  open  portfolio  before  him.  This  portfolio,  it 
presently  appeared,  contained  my  dossier  —  that 
is,  all  the  letters  I  had  written  to  him,  copies  of 
all  which  had  been  sent  me  officially,  and  pre- 
sumably various  other  memoranda  concerning 
my  credentials,  my  performances,  and  my  char- 
acter. During  my  visit  to  a  provincial  univer- 
sity a  little  later,  I  had  the  privilege  of  finding 
myself,  for  a  day  or  two,  in  the  same  town  and  at 
the  same  hotel  with  an  accomplished  Inspector 
of  Instruction  in  Modern  Languages,  who  had  an 
agreeably  expert  knowledge  of  the  local  vintages.j 
The  pleasure  I  derived  from  his  society  was  in  no 
degree  impaired  by  the  probability  that  his  honest 
estimate  of  what  my  academic  mission  amounted 
to  might  find  its  way  to  my  dossier  at  Paris. 
But  if  I  had  been  a  Frenchman  whose  whole 
future  depended  on  such  statements  of  opinion 
my  sentiments  might  have  been  less  cheerful. 
For,  as  I  understand  the  matter,  everybody  who 
has  ever  taught  anything  in  France,  in  whatever 
grade,  has  his  dossier  duly  on  file  at  the  Ministry. 
And  whenever  any  question  arises,  especially  con- 
cerning promotion,  these  exhaustive  records  are 
pitilessly  scrutinized. 

Of  course,  there  are  institutions  of  learning  in 


( 


10         THE  FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

France  which  do  not  fall  within  the  limits  of  this 
rigid  system.     There  are  private  schools,  analo- 
gous to  private  schools  in  America.    Until  lately 
there  have  been  very  highly  developed  schools 
under  the  direct  control  of  the  teaching  orders 
of  the  clergy.     And  there  are  many  established 
institutions  of  the  highest  education  —  such  as 
/  the  College  de  France,  the  Ecole  Normale,  or  the 
lEcole  Libre  des  Sciences  Politiques  —  which  form 
no  regular  part  of  the  university  organization. 
The  position  of  these  somewhat  irregular  sem- 
inaries of  instruction,  however,  —  whether  they 
be  semi-official,  or  in  no  way  connected  with  the 
government,  —  is  not  so  independent  as  it  might 
seem.     For,  as  I  understand  the  matter,  they  are 
open  in  two  distinct  ways  to  official  supervision 
rand  control.     In  the  first  place,  they  may  always 
be  visited  by  the  regular  inspectors  of  the  gov- 
ernment schools ;   in  the  second  place,  and  far 
more  importantly,  no  one  may  legally  teach  in 
(^       them  who  has  not  taken  the  university  degree 
^    which  would  be  required  for  teaching  of  similar 
4ix "  grade  in  the  regular  system.     And  only  the  es- 
.  j\'^   tablished  universities,  which  are  under  the  direct 
authority  of  the  Ministry,  have  authority  to  con- 
fer valid  degrees  or  educational  certificates  of  any 
kind  whatever.     To  obtain  credit  for  work  done 
at  a  private  school,  accordingly,  or  at  any  insti- 


THE  UNIVERSITIES  11 

tution  not  completely  official  in  character,  all 
students  must  present  themselves  at  the  regular 
examinations  of  the  universities.  And  this  credit 
is  no  mere  matter  of  form ;  without  at  least  a 
degree  from  the  secondary  schools,  almost  every 
professional  career  in  France  —  even  that  of  an 
apothecary  —  is  absolutely  closed. 

A  curious  example  of  how  much  this  signi- 
fies occurred  at  a  provincial  university  where  I 
happened  to  arrive  while  examinations  were  in 
progress.  Two  or  three  candidates,  evidently 
strangers,  appeared  in  clerical  garb.  On  inquiry, 
it  turned  out  that  they  had  studied  at  a  church 
school  in  the  jurisdiction  of  another,  and  a  rather 
remote,  university.  The  pronounced  opposition 
of  the  government  to  many  forms  of  ecclesiastical 
instruction  had  resulted  in  a  warmth  of  feeling 
which  forbade  them,  as  a  matter  of  principle,  to 
recognize  the  educational  system  of  the  state  in 
their  immediate  neighborhood.  At  the  same 
time,  they  needed  degrees  from  the  state,  in 
order  to  pursue  their  careers.  So  they  had  re- 
sorted to  the  expedient  of  taking  a  day's  jour- 
ney and  presenting  themselves  in  a  strange  city 
for  examinations  which,  under  ordinary  circum- 
stances, they  would  have  taken  at  home. 

The  degree  which  these  young  ecclesiastics 
already  possessed  was  one  which  produces  a  cer- 


12         THE  FRANCE  OF  TODAY 

tain  confusion  in  the  minds  of  people  accustomed 
to  the  university  systems  of  England  and  of 
America.  It  was  that  of  bachelier,  which  sounds 
very  like  ours  of  bachelor  of  arts.  In  point  of 
fact,  however,  the  French  degree  of  bachelier  is 
given  not  at  the  completion  of  a  course  of 
higher  education,  but  at  that  of  secondary.  As  I 
understand  the  matter,  primary  instruction  in 
France  is  absolutely  compulsory  ;  like  primary 
instruction  anywhere  else,  it  teaches  everybody 
to  read,  to  write,  and  to  manage  the  elementary 
processes  of  arithmetic ;  it  offers,  at  the  same 
time,  various  other  kinds  of  elementary  instruc- 
tion, of  which  the  results  are  not  so  evident ;  and 
it  is  complete  at  twelve  or  fourteen  years  of  age. 
A  certificate  that  primary  education  is  thus  com- 
pleted entitles  anyone  who  desires  further  instruc- 
tion to  enter  any  lycde  or  college  in  France.  In 
these  institutions,  where  boys  and  girls  are  kept 
apart,  the  instruction  varies,  according  as  the 
pupil  prefers  a  literary  or  a  scientific  course  of 
study.  In  either  case,  the  instruction,  which  is 
remarkably  thorough,  lasts  until  the  pupil  is  six- 
teen or  eighteen  years  old.  By  that  time  he 
should  be  prepared  for  a  considerable  set  of  ex- 
aminations, both  written  and  oral,  which  are 
equivalent,  in  a  general  way,  to  those  demanded 
for  entrance  to  an  American  college  of  the  better 


THE   UNIVERSITIES  13 

sort;  though,  on  the  whole,  I  should  suppose 
them  to  be  rather  more  severe.  In  any  event, 
they  have  the  severity  of  an  old-fashioned  Amer- 
ican entrance  examination  as  distinguished  from 
the  flaccid  recent  method  of  allowing  candidates 
for  admission  to  college  the  privilege  of  taking  a 
few  examinations  at  a  time;  for  the  whole  set 
must  be  passed  at  once.  Duly  passed,  these 
examinations  entitle  the  student  to  the  degree  of 
bachelier — in  letters  or  in  science,  as  the  case 
may  be. 

This  degree  of  bachelier  is  not,  as  degrees  are 
with  us,  a  matter  only  of  record.  It  actually 
entitles  the  possessor  to  various  rights  which  no 
one  can  have  without  it.  It  opens  various  civil 
careers,  as  well  as  various  careers  in  the  service 
of  the  government.  And  educationally  it  entitles 
people  to  present  themselves  anywhere  in  France 
for  instruction  under  any  of  the  faculties  of  higher 
education  —  letters,  science,  law,  or  medicine. 
At  this  point  comes  a  very  salient  difference  of 
the  French  university  system  from  the  English 
and  our  own.  A  faculty  of  letters  is  looked  upon 
not  as  a  guardian  of  general  culture,  but  as  a 
body  in  all  respects  as  professional  as  a  faculty  of 
law.  Only  students  who  contemplate  literary 
careers  —  such  as  the  writing  or  the  teaching  of 
literature,  history,  or  philosophy  —  are  apt  to 


14         THE   FRANCE   OF   TODAY 

register  themselves  in  the  department  of  letters. 
,  Students  who  purpose  devoting  themselves  to  law 
lor  to  medicine  proceed  with  those  subjects  im- 
mediately. A  course  of  study  under  any  of  the 
faculties  of  higher  education  normally  takes  some 
four  years.  At  the  end  of  this  time  a  student 
should  be  ready  for  another  set  of  examinations 
—  broadly  equivalent  in  letters  to  the  standard 
required  in  England  or  in  America  for  the  degree 
of  bachelor  of  arts.  Like  the  examinations  for 
the  degree  of  backelier,  these  must  all  be  taken 
at  once  ;  and  the  resulting  degree,  in  letters  or  in 
science,  at  all  events,  —  the  degree  which  our 
vagrant  young  ecclesiastics  desired,  —  is  that  of 
Uce7icie,  Licencie  or  Ucenciee,  I  should  rather 
say;  for  under  all  faculties  of  the  higher  edu- 
cation in  France,  men  and  women  are  received 
together  on  completely  equal  terms. 

In  the  educational  system  this  degree  of 
licencie  has  supreme  importance.  Though  a 
teacher  may  qualify  for  employment  in  primary 
schools  by  passing  examinations  designed  for  that 
special  purpose,  something  like  civil  service  ex- 
aminations in  England  or  in  America,  no  one 
who  has  not  taken  the  degree  of  licencie  is  allowed 
to  teach  in  secondary  schools.  But  this  degree, 
which  opens  a  career  of  secondary  teaching,  is 
not  enough  for  a  teacher  whose  ambition  soars 


THE   UNIVERSITIES  15 

higher.  To  take  part  in  the  higher  education  — 
in  what  we  Americans  are  accustomed  to  call  uni- 
versity teaching  —  he  needs  further  credentials. 

The  next  normal  degree,  like  the  highest  reg- 
ular degree  almost  everywhere,  is  that  of  doctor 
—  of  letters,  of  science,  and  so'  on.  According 
to  the  French  system,  however,  this  degree  de- 
mands exceptionally  prolonged  work.  A  success- 
ful candidate  must  present  two  original  theses, 
one  of  which  is  usually  in  some  other  language 
than  French.  Both  of  these  must  be  accepted 
as  solid  contributions  to  the  department  of  learn- 
ing in  which  he  professes  to  excel ;  and  at  least 
the  principal  one  must  be  a  book  of  importance,  I 
not  only  in  substance,  but  in  scale  and  in  style. 
The  late  Professor  Beljame's  well-known  treatise 
on  the  "  Public  and  INIen  of  Letters  in  England 
during  the  Eighteenth  Century,"  for  instance, 
was  one  of  the  theses  which  earned  him  the  de- 
gree of  doctor  of  letters  many  years  ago.  And 
among  the  theses  accepted  at  the  Sorbonne 
within  the  last  few  years  are  the  best  studies  in 
existence  of  Poe  and  of  Hawthorne.  The  chance 
that  I  was  American  brought  me  the  pleasure  of 
personal  acquaintance  with  the  authors  of  these 
works  —  M.  Lauvriere,  who  received  the  degree 
of  doctor  four  or  five  years  ago,  and  M.  Dhaleine, 
who  received  it  in  1905.     The  fact  that  neither 


16         THE  FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

of  these  gentlemen  was  precisely  young  implied 
what  is  generally  true  of  those  who  attain  the 
highest  French  degree  in  letters.  The  work  de- 
manded for  it  can  hardly  be  accomplished  before 
a  candidate  is  well  past  thirty  years  of  age.  The 
degree  is  actually  granted,  to  all  appearances,  on 
the  strength  of  theses,  which  are  subjected  to  the 
closest  scrutiny.  Nominally,  however,  it  is  con- 
ferred only  on  candidates  who  have  publicly  de- 
fended their  theses  with  success ;  and  even  though 
this  process  of  defence  be  only  a  matter  of  form, 
it  looks  portentously  serious. 

On  an  appointed  day  the  candidate  for  the 
doctorate  in  Paris  presents  himself  in  a  large  hall 
at  the  Sorbonne,  something  like  a  court-room, 
which  will  accommodate  three  or  four  hundred 
people.  This  is  absolutely  open  tp  the  public, 
who  appear  to  value  their  privilege ;  for  on  the 
several  occasions  when  I  happened  to  attend 
such  a  ceremony,  there  were  always  a  good  many 
spectators.  The  candidate  takes  his  seat  at  a 
desk  facing  a  raised  bench,  which  is  occupied  by 
the  professors  who  have  certified  to  the  quality 
of  the  thesis  he  is  to  defend.  Each  of  them  is 
provided  with  a  printed  copy  of  the  thesis ;  and 
during  two  or  three  hours  they  attack  it  in  turn. 
jThe  attack  generally  begins  with  words  of  cordial 
praise,  which  are  followed,  in  due  time,  by  every 


THE   UNIVERSITIES  17 

adverse  comment,  general  and  detailed,  which  has 
presented  itself  to  learned  and  ingenious  critical 
minds.  To  these  comments  the  candidate  must 
instantly  reply  —  intelligently,  fluently,  and  in 
unimpeachable  French.  Generally  he  answers 
stoutly,  though  with  extreme  formal  politeness ; 
now  and  then  —  particularly  when  detected  in 
some  slight  error  of  fact  —  he  accepts  the  correc- 
tion, with  thanks,  and  mentions  that  he  shall 
proceed  to  make  it  in  the  next  edition  of  his 
work.  Finally,  at  least  in  every  case  which 
came  to  my  knowledge,  his  defence  of  the  thesis 
is  pronounced  adequate,  after  a  formal  consulta- 
tion of  his  examiners.  And  his  labors  are  there- 
upon crowned  with  the  degree  of  doctor,  which 
entitles  him  to  be  employed,  if  he  can  secure 
the  employment,  as  viaitre  de  conferences  —  that 
is,  as  instructor  —  in  any  institution  of  higher 
education,  and  which  makes  him  eligible  for  ap- 
pointment as  professor  in  a  faculty  of  the  highest 
rank. 

Meanwhile,  as  we  have  seen,  he  has  inevitably 
got  well  toward  middle  life.  Obviously  it  is 
desirable  that  competent  people  should  occupy 
themselves  in  giving  the  higher  instruction  at 
an  earlier  age.  To  meet  this  difficulty  a  happy 
device  exists.  Any  licencie  is  entitled  to  present 
himself  at  Paris  for  a  special  competitive  exam- 


18         THE   FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

ination  in  his  chosen  subject.  The  fact  that  this 
examination  is  held  only  at  Paris  emphasizes  its 
importance.  Though  the  degrees  of  Paris  are 
generally  held  in  so  much  higher  esteem  than 
others  that  most  candidates  for  the  doctorate  go 
thither,  the  degree  of  doctor  may  regularly  be 
conferred  by  any  of  the  universities.  This  com- 
petitive examination,  on  the  other  hand,  occurs 
nowhere  else ;  and  although  it  is  open  to  candi- 
dates from  any  part  of  the  country,  it  is  so 
arduous  that  preparation  for  it  in  Paris  is  more 
than  desirable.  At  least  until  very  lately  such 
preparation  has  been  the  special  task  of  that 
admirable  institution  of  the  higher  learning,  the 
Ecole  Normale.  Without  some  such  expert 
training,  even  able  men  are  rarely  able  to  meet 
the  test.  A  few  years  ago,  for  example,  a  candi- 
date who  had  successfully  passed  the  preliminary 
phases  off  this  examination  was  summoned  to 
appear,  at  a  given  hour,  before  a  professor  of 
the  Sorbonne.  This  functionary  handed  him  a 
paper,  drawn  at  random  from  an  urn.  On  this 
was  written  the  title  of  some  subject  in  the  de- 
partment with  which  the  candidate  was  con- 
cerned. Precisely  twenty-four  hours  later  he 
was  required  to  present  to  the  same  professor, 
at  the  same  place,  a  complete  written  lecture  on 
this  subject,  with  due  bibliographic  notes.     Some 


THE   UNIVERSITIES  19 

such  final  test  as  this  decides  the  question  of 
success  in  a  competitive  examination  where  can- 
didates present  themselves  in  considerable  num- 
bers, and  where  only  ten  or  fifteen  per  cent  of 
them  are  accepted.  These  fortunate  persons  re- 
ceive the  degree  of  agrege.  This  is  so  highly- 
esteemed  that,  in  practice,  few  who  have  not  won 
it  can  hope  for  responsible  employment  even  in 
secondary  education.  None  without  it,  unless 
they  become  doctors,  can  instruct  under  the 
hiffher  faculties.  And  it  is  so  much  harder  to 
attain  than  any  other  French  degree  that  it  is 
really  the  most  important.  You  will  hardly  find 
a  professor  anywhere  who  has  not  become  an 
agrege  before  he  has  proceeded,  with  due  delib- 
eration, to  the  regular  degree  of  doctor,  without 
which  he  cannot  aspire  to  a  full  professorship  in 
a  faculty  of  letters,  science,  law,  or  medicine. 

Such,  in  brief,  was  the  university  system  in 
which,  for  the  year  following  my  kind  friend's 
explanation  of  it,  I  was  to  hold  an  exceptional 
position.  So  far  as  degrees  went  —  though  I 
had  the  prudence  not  to  mention  the  circum- 
stance —  I  was  only  a  Harvard  bachelor  of  arts  ; 
I  had  never  troubled  myself  with  the  task,  prac- 
tically superfluous  at  home,  of  studying  for  any- 
thing nominally  higher.  Yet,  as  a  professor 
delegated  from  Harvard  to  lecture  in  France, 


20         THE   FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

I  was  temporarily  the  equal  of  professors  in 
the  University  of  Paris,  addressed  by  them  as 
collegue,  and  by  inferior  university  officials  as 
maitre.  In  order  to  regulate  my  behavior,  it  was 
necessary  that  I  should  understand  my  status, 
almost  as  if  my  position  had  been  in  a  diplomatic 
system  or  a  military.  This  was  why  my  cordial 
colleague  with  the  blackboard  devoted  the  first 
hour  of  our  intercourse  to  the  lecture  which  I 
have  tried  to  remember  and  to  summarize.  No 
friendly  service  could  have  been  more  opportune. 
Throughout  my  stay  in  France  it  threw  constant 
light  on  my  official  relations  and  duties. 

In  France  these  duties  were  as  regular  as  any 
teaching  in  class-room  or  laboratory.  At  all 
French  universities  —  at  least  in  the  department 
of  letters  —  two  distinct  kinds  of  instruction  are 
invariably  offisred.  One,  precisely  similar  to  that 
customary  in  our  own  country,  consists  of  what 
are  called  cours  fermes — that  is,  of  exercises  in 
class-rooms  open  only  to  registered  students. 
The  other  consists  of  what  are  called  cours 
pvhlics.  These  courses  of  lay  sermons,  open, 
like  divine  service,  to  anyone  who  cares  to  hear 
them,  are  immemorially  established  in  the  aca- 
demic custom  of  France,  —  being,  as  I  conceive, 
a  surviving  trace  of  the  instruction  usual  in  the 
universities  of  the  Middle  Ages.     And  they 


THE   UNIVERSITIES  21 

retain  a  kind  of  popularity  much  like  that  en- 
joyed among  ourselves  by  the  pulpit  utterances 
of  reputable  preachers.  That  is,  if  a  lecturer 
gives  a  public  course  acceptably,  he  is  assured  of 
considerable  and  intelligent  audiences.  Among 
these  are  a  certain  number  of  students,  interested 
either  in  the  subject  discussed  or  in  the  person- 
ality of  the  lecturer.  The  greater  part  of  the 
attendance,  however,  consists  of  people  in  no 
way  connected  with  the  university,  including  a 
good  many  women  who  come  as  a  matter  of 
curiosity,  or  occasionally  of  fashion.  Yet  this 
agreeable  feature  of  such  audiences  in  France  is 
less  salient  than  the  number  of  mature  men  of 
serious  intelligence  who  faithfully  follow  a  course 
of  public  lectures.  Such  a  course  was  the  duty 
with  which  I  was  charged,  both  in  Paris  and 
later  in  the  provinces. 

This  duty,  meanwhile,  involved  others,  of  per- 
sonal character,  far  more  exacting  than  would 
have  been  the  case  at  home.  In  the  first  place, 
I  was  bound  to  make  official  calls  on  my  aca- 
demic superiors  —  the  rectors  and  the  deans  — 
at  the  earliest  possible  moment.  In  the  second 
place,  whenever  I  had  the  good  fortune  to  be 
presented  to  an  academic  equal  —  a  professor, 
a  collegue  —  I  was  bound  to  leave  my  card  at  his 
door  within  twenty-four  hours,  on  pain  of  being 


22         THE   FRANCE   OF   TODAY 

held  barbarously  deficient  in  good  manners. 
With  people  in  a  position  of  academic  inferiority, 
on  the  other  hand,  these  pleasant  duties  were 
less  stringent. 

Thus  my  actual  knowledge  of  France  began. 
Trying  to  play  my  part  punctiliously,    I   was 
aided  throughout  by  the  punctilious  kindness 
with  which  my  superiors  and  my  colleagues  — 
and,  indeed,  everybody  else — played  theirs.     The 
^  truth  is  that  social  intercourse  anywhere  is  some- 
i  thing  like  comedy ;  and  that  the  French  conduct 
I   the  comedy  of  life  more  skilfully  than  we  do. 
They  know  their  cues,  and  lure  you  unawares 
into    mastery    of   your    own.      In    comparison, 
we    Americans    are    like    amateurs,    stumbling 
through    the    good-natured    confusion    of   im- 
promptu charades. 

Here  and  there  the  methods  of  the  French 
universities  seemed  to  me  a  little  old-fashioned. 
One  of  the  chief  officials  of  the  Sorbonne,  for 
example,  who  received  me  with  the  greatest 
kindness,  expressed  a  desire  that  during  my  stay 
in  Paris  I  should  enjoy  every  possible  privilege  ; 
consequently,  he  went  on  to  say,  he  had  given 
directions  that  I  should  have  access,  whenever 
I  chose,  to  the  catalogue  of  the  library.  With- 
out this  advantage,  it  appeared,  I  should  have 
been  obliged,  in   case  I  desired  a  book,  to  ask  an 


THE  UNIVERSITIES  23 

attendant  whether  the  Hbrary  possessed  it ;  or, 
in  case  I  wished  for  authorities  on  any  given  sub- 
ject, to  request  him  at  his  convenience  to  make 
me  a  Uttle  bibUography.  In  various  other  places, 
I  subsequently  found  out,  —  at  the  College  de 
France,  at  the  Ecole  Libre  des  Sciences  Poli- 
tiques,  and  doubtless  elsewhere,  —  libraries  of 
rather  special  range  are  at  the  disposal  of  scholars 
duly  introduced.  Generally  speaking,  however, 
books  seem  less  accessible  in  France  than  you 
would  expect ;  and  consequently  anyone  who 
needs  many  finds  that  he  must  buy  more  than 
is  the  case  at  home. 

When  it  came  to  the  conduct  of  lectures, 
however,  the  arrangements  were  refreshingly 
pleasanter  than  anything  which  I  had  known 
before.  A  comfortable  little  room  is  at  the  dis- 
posal of  the  lecturer,  where  he  is  expected  to 
arrive,  in  frock  coat  and  black  cravat,  a  few 
minutes  before  the  hour  named  for  his  public 
appearance.  At  precisely  the  hour  in  question, 
an  impressive  being  in  dress  clothes,  with  a  silver 
chain  about  his  neck,  presents  himself,  holding 
a  tray  on  which  are  a  glass,  a  spoon,  a  decanter 
of  water,  and  a  saucer  containing  a  few  lumps  of 
sugar.  With  these  in  hand,  he  precedes  the  lec- 
turer to  the  platform  of  the  hall  where  the 
audience  is  already  assembled.     He  places  the 


24         THE  FRANCE  OF  TODAY 

sugar  and  water  on  the  desk,  —  and,  as  I  did  not 
personally  have  recourse  to  this  refreshment,  it 
is  possible  that  the  ingredients  remained  un- 
changed from  November  till  March,  —  and  he 
withdraws  for  an  hour.  At  precisely  the  end 
of  the  hour,  the  appariteur,  as  this  functionary 
is  called,  reappears  at  the  little  door  behind  the 
platform.  You  thereupon  bring  your  lecture  to 
a  close.  Whether  he  have  authority,  in  other 
event,  to  remove  you  forcibly  I  never  ventured 
to  inquire.  At  New  Year  s  time  I  gave  him 
five  francs,  by  the  counsel  of  one  of  my  col- 
leagues, who  represented  that  he  would  be 
displeased  with  less  and  disconcerted  with 
more. 

In  the  little  waiting-room,  both  before  and 
after  lectures,  I  was  free  to  receive  anyone  whom 
I  chose.  The  appariteur  served  as  watch-dog, 
duly  warning  away  people  without  credentials, 
and  politely  intimating  to  me  the  character  of  any 
who  had  them.  Thus  I  came  to  meet  a  certain 
number  of  students  interested  in  what  I  was  dis- 
cussing. Here,  at  once,  I  found  myself  in  an 
unfamiliar  atmosphere.  Whoever  has  had  much 
to  do  with  American  students  must  agree,  I 
think,  that  their  abundant  energy  is  apt  to 
exert  itself  in  other  fields  than  those  where  they 
are  brought  into  professional  contact  with  their 


THE   UNIVERSITIES  25 

teachers.  French  students  seem  of  different 
stripe.  They  are  alertly  intelligent,  serious  to 
a  degree  which  shames  you  into  consciousness 
of  comparative  frivolity,  intellectually  energetic 
beyond  reproach  ;  but  somehow,  when  you  have 
been  habituated  to  academic  intercourse  at  home, 
they  seem  a  shade  inhuman.  One  can  soon  see 
why.  It  is  not  that  they  lack  humanity ;  in 
private  life,  they  are  said  to  maintain  the  con- 
vivial tradition  of  ancestral  France.  But  human- 
ity and  work  are  separate  things ;  and  to  them 
university  work  is  a  really  critical  matter.  They 
are  not  playing  through  three  or  four  years  which 
shall  ripen  them  into  something  sweeter  than 
they  might  grow  to  be  without  this  happy  inter- 
val between  the  drudgery  of  school  and  the  strife 
of  responsible  existence ;  they  are  assiduously 
preparing  themselves  for  a  career  of  intense  com- 
petition. Their  spirit  seems  quite  to  lack  the 
amateurish  grace  so  engagingly  characteristic 
of  American  undergraduates ;  in  contrast,  they 
seem  intensely,  startlingly  professional. 

In  the  best  sense  of  this  abused  term,  no 
doubt.  It  is  not  that  French  students  impress 
you  as  disposed  to  trickery  or  subterfuge.  It  is 
only  that,  in  their  whole  relation  to  university 
work,  they  take  for  granted  that  they  are  occu- 
pied not  in  the  acquisition  of  that  vague  thing 


26         THE   FRANCE   OF   TODAY 

which  we  call  "  culture,"  but  in  a  very  palpable 
phase  of  the  struggle  for  existence.  Their  busi- 
ness, as  students,  is  to  inform  themselves  as 
widely  and  as  accurately  as  possible  ;  and  above 
all,  to  gather  their  information  in  some  compre- 
hensive and  comprehensible  system.  That  is 
why  they  are  at  the  university ;  and  they  are 
generally  enrolled  under  the  faculty  of  letters, 
because  they  aspire,  in  due  time,  to  become 
members  of  such  a  faculty,  if  possible  ultimately 
in  Paris.  So  far  as  my  observation  went,  there 
is  nothing  at  any  French  university  which  takes 
the  place  of  undergraduate  life  in  England  or  in 
America.  The  only  incident  in  my  experience 
which  promised  an  exception  to  this  rule  turned 
out  to  prove  it.  At  a  provincial  university 
some  students  invited  me  to  what  I  supposed  to 
be  some  such  entertainment  as  is  given  by  the 
dramatic  clubs  of  American  colleges.  In  one 
sense  it  was ;  the  variety  performance  in  ques- 
tion was  blamelessly  commonplace.  The  actors, 
however,  were  not  students,  but  professionals  — 
male  and  female  —  hired  for  the  occasion.  And 
what  the  students  had  to  do  with  it,  beyond 
forming  part  of  the  audience,  I  could  not  make 
out.  They  did  not  even  seem  to  know  one 
another  personally.  The  relation  of  any  French 
student  to  his  teachers  or  to  his  fellows,  in  short, 


THE   UNIVERSITIES  27 

may  be  cordially  friendly,  or  it  may  quite  lack 
human  quality.  The  situation  is  like  what 
would  exist  at  home  between  fellow-practitioners 
of  a  profession. 

In  some  of  the  institutions  not  directly  under 
my  observation,  I  was  given  to  understand, — 
particularly  at  the  Ecole  Normale,  —  a  stronger 
feeling  of  comradeship  exists.  Even  there,  how- 
ever, this  comradeship  is  based  on  a  common 
professional  purpose  and  on  eager  and  honorable 
competition,  i  From  beginning  to  end  the  higher 
phase  of  education  in  France  has  a  different 
function  from  that  to  which  American  tradition 
accustoms  us.  Technically,  the  French  training 
is  better  ;  in  some  respects,  despairingly  so.  For 
it  is  not  only  intensely  earnest ;  it  so  admirably 
combines  precision  with  generalization  —  accu- 
rate attention  to  detail  with  constant  effort  to 
keep  general  principles  in  mind  —  that  it  seems 
much  more  vital  than  any  other  training  which 
has  come  to  my  knowledge.  But,  on  the  other 
hand,  an  American  boy,  no  matter  how  careless 
of  his  studies,  who  has  passed  three  or  four  years 
at  college,  will  find  himself  as  a  human  being  the 
better  for  life  in  consequence  —  the  more  sym- 
pathetic, the  richer  in  human  quality.  Which 
is  really  why  our  American  reverence  for  our 
colleges  is  so  wholesome.     This  human  quality 


28         THE   FRANCE  OF  TODAY 

seemed  quite  lacking  in  the  university  life  of 
France. 

To  some  extent,  this  impression  remains  true 
when  you  turn  from  students  to  professors.  In 
general,  the  professors  of  the  French  universities 
are  not  only  sound  and  accomplished  scholars ; 
they  are  men  virho  have  acquired  considerable 
knowledge  of  the  world,  men  of  social  tact,  men 
of  animated  charm  in  private  life.  But  in  their 
professional  character  they  are  as  serious  as  if 
there  were  no  such  thing  as  pleasure  on  earth. 
Though  they  are  less  burdened  than  we  with 
routine  teaching,  they  may  never  relax  their  effort 
to  extend  and  solidify  their  learning.  None  of  my 
previous  experience  had  revealed  to  me  anything 
like  such  a  spectacle  of  concentrated  and  unceas- 
ing intellectual  activity  as  seemed  a  matter  of 
course  among  my  temporary  colleagues  at  Paris. 
Foreign  prejudice  is  apt  to  suppose  the  French 
light-hearted,  frivolous,  and  at  best  superficial. 
When  you  live  among  French  men  of  learning 
engaged  in  the  work  of  their  lives,  you  begin 
to  wonder  whence  this  grotesque  misconception 
arose.  For  nobody  could  imagine  industry  more 
unremitting  than  theirs,  and,  for  all  its  cheerful- 
ness, more  intense. 

Professional,  again,  is  the  word  which  comes 
to  mind.     Just  as  the  student  life  of  France  lacks 


THE   UNIVERSITIES  29 

the  human  quality  which  goes  far  to  justify  the 
shortcomings  of  American  students,  so  the  Ufe 
of  a  professor  in  France  lacks  the  social  element 
which  admirably  pervades  the  universities  of 
England,  and  is  not  unknown  among  ourselves. 
At  least  in  Paris  there  seems  little  necessary 
personal  relation  among  these  busy  fellow- 
workers.  They  know  each  other,  of  course,  and 
if  they  chance  to  find  each  other  congenial,  they 
may  be  bound  by  close  ties  of  friendship  ;  but 
such  a  state  of  things  seems  no  more  a  matter 
of  course  than  it  would  be  among  members  of 
the  bar  or  practising  physicians.  Perhaps  the 
most  conspicuous  evidence  of  what  I  mean  is 
the  punctilious  politeness  with  which  they  always 
treat  one  another.  My  first  impression  was  that 
the  formal  courtesy  which  they  invariably 
showed  me,  as  a  visitor,  indicated  a  shade  of 
difference  between  my  position  and  the  more 
intimate  relation  which  must  probably  exist 
among  themselves.  The  longer  I  stayed  in 
France,  the  more  conv3iced  I  became  that  this 
impression  was  mistaken.  I  was  in  a  world,  I 
discovered,  where  learning  is  not  an  accomplish- 
ment, but  an  honorable  and  arduous  profession, 
with  all  its  trials,  all  its  heart-burning  competi- 
tion, all  its  pitiless  disdain  of  weakness,  all  its 
stimulating  rewards. 


80         THE   FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

The  normal  career  of  a  French  professor,  in 
general,  is  somewhat  as  follows :  Almost  from 
the  time  when  he  enters  a  secondary  school,  he 
contemplates  the  profession  to  which  he  shall 
devote  his  life.  Certainly  by  the  time  when  he 
becomes  a  bachelier,  his  purpose  is  determined. 
At  the  university  he  devotes  himself  assiduously 
to  the  subject  which  he  proposes  to  master. 
Once  equipped  with  the  degree  of  licencie,  he  is 
eligible  for  employment  as  a  teacher  in  some 
secondary  school.  If  in  need  of  support,  he  is 
apt  to  take  up  this  work  for  a  while ;  if  more 
fortunate,  he  is  more  likely  to  proceed  at  once 
to  higher  study,  usually  under  the  direction  of 
the  most  eminent  specialists  in  Paris.  In  either 
event,  unless  circumstances  prove  benumbing,  he 
prepares  himself,  with  unflagging  energy,  for  the 
competitive  examination  which  may  win  him  the 
degree  of  agrege.  This  achieved,  he  is  eligible 
for  appointment  as  professor  in  any  secondary 
school,  or  as  a  lecturer  —  maltre  de  conferences 
—  under  any  faculty  of  the  higher  education. 
Before  he  can  become  full  professor  in  such  a 
faculty  he  must  wait  for  his  doctorate ;  of  this, 
however,  he  can  be  pretty  confident,  in  due  time. 
The  laggards  have  been  left  behind. 

Accordingly,  he  becomes  as  soon  as  possible 
professor  in  the  chief  lycee  of  some  university 


THE   UNIVERSITIES  31 

centre,  and  offers  courses  of  instruction  under 
the  faculty  to  which  he  is  attached.  His  first 
appointment  is  usually  rather  remote  from  Paris 
—  the  centre  of  the  system  and  the  goal  of  his 
ambition.  He  is  sent,  to  prove  his  quality, 
somewhere  in  the  provinces.  There,  for  various 
reasons,  he  may  perhaps  remain ;  and  wherever 
he  is  he  works  hard  and  well.  Anyone  who  has 
glanced  at  the  title-pages  of  serious  French  books 
must  be  impressed  by  the  quality  of  those  which 
frequently  proceed  from  teachers  in  what  seem 
obscure  and  outlying  regions.  In  every  case, 
however,  he  hopes  for  promotion,  which  means 
not  so  much  advancement  in  local  rank  —  though 
this,  of  course,  counts  for  something  —  as  ap- 
pointment to  a  position  nearer  Paris. 

This  state  of  affairs  was  brought  vividly  to  my 
notice  at  several  provincial  universities.  In  one 
instance  I  found  a  distinguished  professor  of 
history  receiving  hearty  congratulations  on  all 
sides.  Beyond  question  the  most  eminent  local 
antiquarian  who  had  ever  written  about  the 
deeply  interesting  region  which  he  had  inhabited 
for  twenty  years,  he  had  just  been  called  to  a 
chair  at  the  College  de  France,  in  Paris  —  an 
institution  supplementary  to  the  Sorbonne,  where 
the  instruction  is  of  the  highest  order,  and  the 
body  of  instructors  of  the  highest  distinction. 


32         THE   FRANCE   OF   TODAY 

There  was  not  an  instant  of  hesitation  or  of  doubt 
that  he  would  proceed  at  once  from  the  city 
which  had  so  long  been  his  home  —  and  where, 
for  one  thing,  every  detail  of  local  genealogy  for 
a  thousand  years  was  on  the  tip  of  his  tongue  — 
to  surroundings  where,  personally,  he  would  be 
almost  as  strange  as  I.  In  Paris,  furthermore, 
his  professional  dignity  would  be  far  less  in- 
stantly obvious  than  in  the  city  he  was  about 
to  leave  ;  at  best,  he  would  be  lost  to  sight  there, 
in  the  crowd  of  other  than  learned  human  energy 
which  infests  every  great  capital.  Yet,  so  far  as 
I  could  perceive,  he  felt  no  shade  of  such  sen- 
timental regret  as,  under  similar  circumstances, 
would  have  arisen  in  the  mind  of  an  American 
professor  thus  called  from  the  habitual  surround- 
ings of  half  a  lifetime.  And  among  his  col- 
leagues, much  as  they  would  surely  miss  both  ^ 
his  eminent  teaching  and  his  winning  personality, 
I  could  detect  no  shade  of  resentment.  They 
seemed  unanimous  in  their  sentiment  of  gener- 
ous good- will  —  much  as  men  might  seem  at 
home  if  a  favorite  colleague  should  receive  an 
honorary  degree. 

At  another  university  of  considerable  impor- 
tance, I  found  the  Rector  in  the  act  of  packing  up 
his  library.  He  had  had  the  good  fortune  to 
be  called  to  the  office  of  Inspector-General  —  or 


THE   UNIVERSITIES  33 

some  such  matter  —  in  the  Ministry  of  Pubhc 
Instruction.  It  transpired  that  this  promotion 
came  not  long  after  his  last,  which  had  been  from 
the  rectorship  of  another  university,  some  hours 
farther  from  Paris,  by  a  less  direct  line.  In  this 
former  position  he  had  distinguished  himself  by 
infusing  into  a  somewhat  languid  institution  of 
learning  a  degree  of  vitality  which  had  caused 
it  to  be  widely  recognized.  When  called  nearer 
to  Paris,  however,  he  had  felt  no  compunction  in 
abandoning  his  nursling  to  a  successor,  who  was 
at  that  moment  preparing  to  follow  him  to  the 
higher  rectorship  which  he  was  about  to  vacate. 
And  when,  somewhat  later,  I  visited  the  univer- 
sity from  which  these  two  Rectors  had  been 
successively  promoted,  I  found  it  under  the  rec- 
torship of  a  somewhat  subdued  gentleman,  at 
once  gratified  to  be  at  the  head  of  a  university 
and  depressed  to  be  sent  thither  from  the  capital, 
where  his  previous  academic  status  had  been 
subordinate. 

The  grounds  on  which  promotions  are  made  are 
undoubtedly  complicated.  Sound  scholarship, 
brilliant  publication,  efficient  teaching,  count 
for  much.  Personal  qualities  count  for  some- 
thing ;  and  so,  at  times,  do  political  and  religious 
considerations.  During  the  Empire,  I  have  been 
told,  a  professor  of  doubtful  orthodoxy  was  apt 


34         THE  FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

to  have  little  favor ;  and  during  the  period  when 
the  government  of  the  Republic  has  been  engaged 
in  disestablishing  the  Church  obvious  devotion 
to  the  Catholic  faith  has  not  been  thought  wholly- 
favorable  to  academic  advancement.  In  any 
event,  the  question  turns,  to  great  degree,  on 
those  inexorable  dossiers  in  the  Ministry  at  Paris. 
Once  or  twice  a  year,  the  Director  of  Higher 
Education  summons  all  the  rectors  of  France  to 
a  meeting  at  the  Ministry ;  there,  I  believe,  the 
inspectors  meet  them,  more  or  less  officially. 
There,  no  doubt,  the  dossiers  are  inspected  and 
completed.  And  on  what  happens  there,  I 
suppose,  depends  what  happens  to  hundreds  of 
anxious  scholars  throughout  France. 

Until  one  fully  understands  this  centralization 
it  is  not  quite  easy  to  explain  two  remarkable 
features  of  French  provincial  universities:  the 
surprisingly  high  quality  of  the  instruction,  and 
the  benumbing  lack  of  local  tradition  or  senti- 
ment. Under  a  system  so  strongly  competitive 
as  that  which  prevails  in  France,  a  man  who 
attains  the  dignity  of  membership  in  any  faculty 
of  the  higher  education  must  not  only  possess 
a  vigorous  mind  highly  trained,  but  also  must 
exert  his  powers  unremittingly.  Though  acci- 
dents may  postpone  or  prevent  his  promotion, 
indefinitely  or  permanently,  nothing   short  of 


THE   UNIVERSITIES  35 

despair  can  destroy  his  hopes  of  it.  So  you 
can  go  nowhere  in  France  without  finding  men 
whose  talents  and  accomplishments,  never  suf- 
fered to  rust,  would  be  admirable  anywhere.  I 
am  tempted  to  say  that  there  is  not  a  single 
centre  of  the  higher  education  in  France  where 
a  foreign  student  might  not  pass  a  year  of  stim- 
ulating work  with  great  advantage.  And  so 
long  as  any  professor  is  officially  attached  to  the 
staff  of  any  university,  however  remote,  he  con- 
scientiously does  all  he  can  to  advance  the  inter- 
ests of  that  institution,  as  distinguished  from  its 
fellows  and  its  rivals.  I  have  more  than  once 
used  the  word  professional  to  express  the  temper 
of  French  learning.  A  better  word  might  have 
been  conscientious. 

All  the  conscience  in  the  world,  however,  can- 
not make  the  intellect  identical  with  the  heart. 
And  just  as  one  feels  among  the  students  of  Paris 
a  startling  lack  of  that  sense  of  fellowship  which 
makes  the  graduates  of  any  American  college 
comrades  for  life,  and  almost  justifies  the  rowdy 
cheers  of  our  athletic  meetings,  so  throughout 
the  provincial  universities  one  feels  that  there 
is  no  trace  of  what  often  seems  most  lastingly 
valuable  in  the  higher  education  of  America  — 
spontaneous  college  feeling.  Any  American  will 
tell  you,  first  of  all,  the  college  he  comes  from. 


36         THE   FRANCE   OF   TODAY 

A  Frenchman  seems  hardly  to  remember  where 
he  studied  —  as  distinguished  from  what  he 
studied,  and  under  whom.  For  in  French  uni- 
versities the  only  business  of  students  or  of 
teachers  is  study.  And  learning  is  the  same 
everywhere ;  it  is  not  a  question  of  local  atmos- 
phere. And  every  Frenchman  who  devotes  his 
life  to  university  work  has  the  same  goal  in  view 
—  Paris,  if  he  can  attain  it ;  if  not,  some  station 
on  the  road  thither. 

When  I  began  to  realize  these  conditions,  the 
circumstances  of  my  visits  to  provincial  universi- 
ties grew  clearer.  In  Paris  1  had  been  received 
as  a  temporary  colleague  by  cordial  French  pro- 
fessors who  had  reached  the  summit  of  their  pro- 
fessional ambition.  To  the  provinces  I  came 
not  only  as  a  foreign  visitor  whom  chance  had 
converted  into  a  temporary  colleague;  I  came 
also  as  a  man  who  had  enjoyed  for  a  little  while 
the  honor  for  which  my  colleagues  most  eagerly 
longed — an  official  appointment  at  the  Sorbonne. 
It  was  partly  this,  I  think,  which  made  my  wel- 
come in  the  provinces  somewhat  more  formal — 
I  had  almost  said  more  ceremonious  —  than  it 
had  been  in  Paris.  Partly,  however,  this  phase 
of  my  provincial  experience  was  probably  due 
to  other  causes. 

One  of  these  was  doubtless  the  traditional 


THE   UNIVERSITIES  37 

rigidity  of  provincial  manners,  pleasantly  touched 
on  throughout  French  literature.  Another  may 
be  found  in  the  relation  of  provincial  universities 
to  their  immediate  surroundings.  The  univer- 
sity of  Paris,  though  positively  of  the  highest 
importance  and  dignity,  is  obscured  by  the  met- 
ropolitan life  which  surrounds  it.  You  might 
live  in  Paris  for  half  a  lifetime  without  realiz- 
ing that  there  are  such  things  as  professors  or 
students  in  the  world.  Throughout  the  prov- 
inces, on  the  other  hand,  every  university  is  a 
conspicuous  fact  in  the  city  where  it  happens  to 
be  seated.  As  more  obvious,  it  is  inevitably 
more  self-conscious ;  and  as  more  self-conscious, 
it  is  naturally  somewhat  more  formal  —  less  apt 
to  assume  itself  a  part  of  the  world  which  lives 
and  moves  around  it. 

At  the  time  when  I  was  in  France,  further- 
more, the  condition  of  politics  gave  all  the  uni- 
versities a  complexion  evident  even  in  Paris 
and  almost  startlingly  obvious  in  the  provinces. 
They  were  government  institutions;  and  the 
government  was  prosecuting  a  policy  which  pre- 
sented itself  to  many  Catholic  minds  as  nothing 
less  than  a  persecution  of  the  Church.  A  some- 
what embarrassing  predicament  followed.  How- 
ever the  regular  staff  of  a  provincial  university 
might  appear  in  the  eyes  of  neighbors  to  whom  its 


88         THE   FRANCE   OF   TODAY 

members  were  personally  familiar,  a  foreign  pro- 
fessor who  came  to  discourse  in  a  foreign  language 
on  a  subject  not  regularly  included  in  university 
programmes  was  inevitably  presumed  to  be  radi- 
cal in  sympathy,  and  was  therefore  an  object  of 
suspicion  to  conservative  or  reactionary  people. 

This  was  particularly  evident  at  Lille  —  the 
first  of  the  provincial  universities  on  my  pro- 
gramme. The  richer  people  of  that  great  manu- 
facturing city  are  such  ardent  Catholics  that  they 
support  a  considerable  Catholic  university  by 
their  gifts.  The  city,  furthermore,  is  close  to 
the  frontier  of  Belgium,  where  some  of  the  Cath- 
olic orders,  forbidden  to  carry  on  their  schools 
in  France,  have  taken  refuge.  Accordingly,  the 
clerical  prejudices  of  Lille  appeared  to  involve 
pretty  strong  dislike  for  any  teaching  officially 
sanctioned  by  an  anticlerical  government.  This 
did  not  mean,  however,  either  that  many  mem- 
bers of  the  regular  faculties  were  not  good  Cath- 
olics or  even  that  the  Catholic  religion  was  not 
officially  taught  in  the  secondary  schools.  Al- 
most the  first  object  which  met  my  eyes  during 
a  visit  to  the  Lyc^e  of  Lille  —  a  very  large  and 
efficient  institution  —  was  the  excellent  priest 
who  was  in  charge  of  the  religious  training  there. 
He  was  a  regular  member  of  the  teaching  staff ; 
he  lived  in  the  buildings,  and  acted,  I  believe, 


THE  UNIVERSITIES  89 

not  only  as  an  orthodox  teacher  of  religion,  but 
also  as  spiritual  adviser  to  the  several  hundred 
Catholic  boys  in  attendance  at  the  school.  In 
the  cases  of  Protestant  or  Jewish  boys,  religious 
instruction  was  likewise  provided  by  the  authori- 
ties. Even  under  this  extremely  anticlerical 
government,  it  proved,  there  was  a  degree  of 
dogmatic  teaching  at  the  expense  of  the  state 
which  would  not  be  tolerated  by  the  public 
opinion  of  any  city  in  America. 

The  phase  of  religious  education  legally  sup- 
pressed a  year  or  two  ago,  in  short,  was  not  the 
teaching  of  tenets  and  principles.  It  was  the 
control  of  secondary  education  by  teaching  orders 
of  ecclesiastics,  who  established  successful  and 
fashionable  schools  in  rivalry  with  the  lycees  of 
the  regular  university  system,  and  there  fitted 
pupils  to  pass  the  regular  examinations  for  the 
degree  of  bachelier.  The  influence  of  these 
schools,  conducted  by  monks  and  nuns,  was 
held  to  be  unfavorable  to  republican  principles, 
as  well  as  to  due  freedom  of  thought  on  the 
part  of  pupils  in  matters  not  directly  concerned 
with  religion.  As  one  Catholic  of  my  acquaint- 
ance put  the  case  to  me,  he  had  acquiesced  with 
regret  in  the  suppression  of  the  teaching  orders, 
for  the  reason  that  he  could  see  no  other  means 
of  saving  France  from  the  condition  of  Spain. 


40        THE  FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

Into  the  actual  range  and  nature  of  the  relig- 
ious instruction  at  the  state  schools,  I  did  not 
inquire.  The  quality  of  the  secular  instruction 
there  seemed  to  me  extraordinarily  high.  It 
happened,  for  example,  that  I  was  taken  into  a 
class-room  where  a  lesson  in  English  was  being 
given  to  some  French  boys  of  sixteen,  mostly 
the  sons  of  operatives.  The  exercise  was  con- 
ducted in  excellent  English,  which  the  pupils 
seemed  to  speak  almost  as  readily  as  the  teacher; 
and  the  point  under  discussion  when  I  visited 
the  class  was  one  which  would  have  puzzled 
Harvard  freshmen.  It  was  the  distinction  in 
meaning  between  the  words  priest  —  a  Catholic 
ecclesiastic  ;  clergyman  —  an  Anglican ;  and  min- 
ister —  a  dissenter.  At  another  provincial  lycee 
I  was  welcomed  by  the  performance  of  an 
English  play,  in  blank  verse,  the  style  of  which 
—  a  modern  imitation  of  Elizabethan  diction  — 
is  extremely  involved.  The  pronunciation  of  the 
young  actors  left  something  to  be  desired.  On 
the  other  hand,  the  longer  I  listened  to  them  the 
more  deeply  I  was  surprised  at  the  intelligence 
with  which  they  had  mastered  the  meaning  of 
passage  after  passage  which  might  well  have  per- 
plexed boys  to  whom  the  English  language  was 
native.  In  American  schools,  or  rather  in  the 
results  of  the  instruction  there  afforded,  I  have 


THE   UNIVERSITIES  41 

never  come  across  the  teaching  of  any  foreign 
language  which  compared  in  efficiency  with  the 
teaching  of  Enghsh  in  secondary  schools  through- 
out France.  And,  to  all  appearances,  this  was 
only  one  example  of  the  thoroughness  and  the 
vitality  of  French  teaching  in  all  its  branches. 

Of  primary-school  work  I  saw  nothing  what- 
ever, except  such  results  of  it  as  should  be  evi- 
dent to  any  traveller.  The  most  obvious  of  these 
is  the  general  accuracy  with  which  people  of  the 
working  class  speak  and  write  their  own  lan- 
guage. Another  is  the  remarkably  robust  and 
wholesome  look  of  school-children.  Statistics 
are  said  to  give  disquieting  figures  concerning 
the  birth-rate  in  France.  The  casual  observa- 
tion of  a  traveller,  on  the  other  hand,  would  lead 
to  the  conclusion  that  there  is  no  country  where 
children  are  better  cared  for.  The  puny  squalor 
of  childhood,  familiar  to  any  eye  in  England  or 
America,  in  Germany  or  Italy,  or  almost  any- 
where else,  is  hardly  to  be  found  among  the 
French.  And  a  comical  evidence  of  how  much 
this  is  due  to  the  management  of  primary  educa- 
tion may  be  found  in  the  extraordinary  personal 
neatness  of  French  school- children  during  the 
months  when  school  is  in  session,  as  distinguished 
from  their  normally  juvenile  carelessness  of  aspect 
in  vacation. 


42         THE  FRANCE   OF   TODAY 

Yet  even  in  school-days,  both  primary  and 
secondary,  this  thoroughness,  this  obvious  effi- 
ciency of  work,  seems,  on  the  whole,  to  have  been 
purchased  at  the  price  of  imperfect  conviviality. 
Conviviality,  after  all,  in  the  literal  sense  of  the 
word,  is  among  the  most  enduring  elements  of 
the  traditional  and  comparatively  inefficient  sys- 
tems of  education  to  which  we  of  America,  like 
our  English  cousins,  have  been  accustomed.  We 
remember  our  school-mates  more  vividly  than 
our  teachers  or  than  what  they  taught  or  failed 
to  teach  us.  To  put  the  matter  most  generally, 
the  emotional  and  the  sentimental  life  of  our 
youthful  years  surges  in  memory  and  in  effisct 
above  the  intellectual  and  the  technical.  Trivial, 
frivolous,  though  such  a  confession  may  sound, 
it  is  not  really  so  at  the  core.  The  whole  pro- 
cess of  our  education  is  indirect.  We  are  ex- 
posed to  certain  influences,  of  which  the  ultimate 
results  make  us  what  we  grow  to  be ;  and  what 
we  grow  to  be  enables  us  to  do  what  we  can. 
In  comparison,  the  whole  system  of  French  edu- 
cation, with  its  strenuous  directness  of  method 
and  of  achievement,  can  hardly  help  impressing 
an  American  as  somewhat  deficient  in  human 
sympathy. 

The  intense,  centralized,  competitive  system  by 
which  all  instructors  are  selected,  and  to  which 


THE   UNIVERSITIES  43 

all  the  students  are  submitting  themselves,  main- 
tains meanwhile  professional  standards  higher 
than  ours.  I  recall  a  remarkable  instance  of  this. 
Chancing  to  enter  the  Ubrary  of  a  professor  of 
Sanskrit,  I  noticed  open  on  his  table  a  book  of 
which  the  characters  looked  so  different  from 
what  I  remembered  of  Sanskrit  texts  that  1 
asked  whether  French  scholars  used  a  different 
Sanskrit  alphabet  from  that  prevalent  in  America. 
He  smiled  at  my  deplorable  ignorance  and  ex- 
plained that  the  text  in  question  was  not  San- 
skrit, but  Chinese.  In  answer  I  regretted  that 
I  had  not  been  aware  that  he  was  engaged  in 
the  teaching  of  Chinese  as  well.  He  was  not,  he 
said  very  simply ;  but  in  the  course  of  his  San- 
skrit work  he  had  to  touch  on  Buddhist  doctrine. 
And  you  can  no  more  discuss  Buddhism,  he 
went  on  to  say,  without  studying  the  standard 
Chinese  commentaries  thereon  than  you  can  dis- 
cuss Christian  theology  without  reference  to  the 
Byzantine  fathers.  So  far  as  I  could  perceive, 
both  of  these  propositions  impressed  him  as  axi- 
omatic. So  far  as  my  observation  of  our  own 
scholarly  attainments  has  gone,  both  of  them 
would  have  seemed,  among  ourselves,  rather 
Utopian. 

The  general  character  of  this  scholar's  temper, 
the  while,  was  deeply  impressive  to  any  American, 


44        THE  FRANCE  OF  TODAY 

You  might  have  expected  such  a  student  to  have 
been  lost  in  his  books,  or  at  best  to  have  Hmited 
bis  energies  to  matters  of  indisputable  accuracy 
—  to  the  collection  and  verification  of  fact.  In- 
stead, the  better  one  knew  him  the  more  one  was 
impressed  with  the  dynamic  quahty  of  his  mental 
habit.  For  a  fact  as  a  fact  he  cared  as  little  as 
if  pedantry  had  never  obscured  the  world.  His 
impulse  —  it  would  misrepresent  the  character- 
istic to  call  it  his  effort  —  was  to  use  every  fact 
in  his  possession  as  part  of  some  system.  With 
all  his  learning,  his  intellect  was  as  active  as  if 
it  bore  no  burden.  What  to  others  might  have 
been  a  burden,  indeed,  seemed  in  his  case  rather 
a  stimulus. 

In  this  respect  he  was  not  peculiar  among  his 
colleagues  throughout  France.  The  more  I  saw 
of  them,  the  more  I  was  confirmed  in  my  be- 
lief that  American  learning  would  be  greatly 
strengthened  if  more  of  our  graduate  students 
came  under  French  influence.  The  influence  of 
German  scholarship  on  American  during  the  past 
ninety  years  has  been  admirable,  but  perhaps 
excessive.  It  has  taught  us  a  respect  for  fact 
and  method  which  our  earlier  learning  lacked. 
It  has  tended  at  the  same  time  to  encourage  the 
notion  that  the  object  and  end  of  all  learning  is 
the  methodical  collection  of  fact.     No  one  would 


THE   UNIVERSITIES  45 

for  an  instant  pretend  this  error  to  be  prevalent 
among  the  higher  minds  of  Germany.  Few  can 
deny  that  it  is  apt  to  possess  the  minds  of 
Americans  who,  having  studied  in  Germany, 
come  home  no  longer  American,  nor  yet  soundly 
German.  The  elder  influence  of  English  scholar- 
ship in  America,  the  while,  has  tended  rather  to 
the  sustenance  of  tradition  than  to  the  recog- 
nition of  newer  learning ;  and  thus  perhaps  to 
rather  attenuated  pedantry.  The  unmixed  in- 
fluence of  France  might  perhaps  tend  toward 
premature  philosophizing.  To  this  danger,  how- 
ever, the  scholarly  minds  of  America  seem  at 
present  very  little  exposed.  Could  our  gradu- 
ate students  who  purpose  devoting  their  lives  to 
teaching  come  into  more  frequent  contact  with 
the  combined  industry  and  intelligence  of  mod- 
ern French  scholarship,  the  American  univer- 
sities of  the  future  might  be  at  once  more  solid 
in  attainment  and  more  stimulating  in  atmos- 
phere than  now  seems  quite  likely. 

On  the  other  hand,  as  we  have  seen  more  than 
once,  even  though  such  students  might  derive 
the  greatest  benefit  from  the  dynamic  mental 
habit  so  strong  throughout  France,  they  would 
find  there  no  such  love  for  the  regions  where 
learning  lingers  as  makes  gracious,  in  a  way  all 
their  own,  the  great  universities  of  England  and 


46         THE   FRANCE   OF   TODAY 

the  elder  colleges  of  America  which  have  grown 
from  our  colonial  traditions.  The  French  are 
not  deficient  in  sentiment.  No  one  can  know 
them  even  from  their  literature,  or  from  the 
most  superficial  travel,  —  still  more,  no  one  can 
come  to  know  them  as  personal  friends,  —  with- 
out recognizing  the  deep,  spontaneous  genuine- 
ness of  their  emotional  nature.  This  phase  of 
their  temperament  as  a  nation  is  more  pro- 
nounced, if  possible,  than  the  admirable  intel- 
lectual one  on  which  our  consideration  of  the 
French  universities  has  touched.  Rather  para- 
doxically, however,  it  is  less  evident  in  their 
educational  surroundings  and  systems  than  almost 
anywhere  else. 


II 

THE   STRUCTURE   OF  SOCIETY 

IT  was  not  long  before  the  nature  of  my  aca- 
demic mission  began  to  reveal  the  French  to 
me  in  other  aspects  than  the  professional  one 
on  which  we  have  been  dwelling.  As  the  first 
American  lecturer  at  the  French  Universities,  I 
was  expected  to  enter  into  personal  relations  with 
as  many  as  possible  of  those  who  for  any  reason 
felt  interest  in  strengthening  sympathy  between 
their  country  and  ours.  Meanwhile,  my  official 
status  in  the  university  system  gave  me,  for  the 
moment,  a  definite  position  in  the  extremely  sys- 
tematic official  society  of  France.  These  facts 
compelled  me  both  in  Paris  and  elsewhere  to 
present  myself  not  only  to  people  whom  1  met 
officially,  but  also  to  those  with  whom,  by  letters 
of  introduction  or  by  other  chance,  I  was  brought 
into  personal  contact. 

Whether  the  origin  of  my  acquaintance  with 
French  people  was  official  or  private,  it  regularly 
began  in  the  same  way.  You  leave  your  card  at 
the  door  of  the  person  on  whom  you  wish  to 


*8         THE   FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

call,  and  there  it  is  taken  in  charge  by  that 
peculiarly  French  functionary  —  the  concierge. 
At  least  in  Paris,  French  people  generally  live 
in  large  houses,  containing  a  number  of  apart- 
ments with  a  common  entrance  and  staircase. 
Close  to  the  entrance  door,  on  the  level  of  the 
street,  are  some  stuffy  little  rooms  inhabited  by 
the  concierge  —  or  porter  —  with  his  family. 
Their  duty,  among  other  things,  is  to  keep  strict 
watch  on  whoever  goes  in  or  out ;  and  at  least 
one  of  them,  often  the  porter's  wife  or  half-grown 
daughter,  is  always  at  hand.  The  chief  peculi- 
arity of  their  temperament  seems  to  be  insatiable 
appetite.  At  whatever  hour  of  day  or  evening 
you  confront  a  concierge^  you  are  sure  to  find 
somebody  eating  or  just  risen  from  table ;  and 
the  atmosphere  inhabited  by  this  bustling  per- 
sonage seems  immortally  laden  with  the  fumes  of 
something  recently  boiled.  No  matter  whether 
you  call  on  a  friend  who  lives  in  some  unpreten- 
tious, out-of-the-way  place  or  on  one  who  inhabits 
a  palace,  the  concierge  is  always  about  the  same. 
You  can  detect  little  difference  between  those  in 
charge  of  important  doors  and  of  insignificant ; 
they  are  as  like  as  house  flies.  Of  course,  you 
occasionally  come  across  private  houses,  with 
regular  domestic  servants  such  as  you  would  find 
anywhere.    But  these,  grand  or  simple,  are  so 


THE   STRUCTURE   OF   SOCIETY    49 

unusual  that  you  remember  the  concierge  as 
standing  between  you  and  further  human  inter- 
course throughout  France. 

In  response  to  your  card,  which  the  concierge 
duly  sees  delivered,  comes  his  master's  card,  often 
with  some  cordial  words  of  greeting  written  on 
it,  or  perhaps  with  a  friendly  note.  If  this  ac- 
knowledgment of  your  existence  contains  an  inti- 
mation of  when  your  French  acquaintance  may 
be  found  at  home,  either  habitually  or  for  your 
special  benefit,  you  make  your  second  visit  at 
the  appointed  time;  and  thus  enter  into  real 
personal  relations.  Otherwise,  your  intercourse 
has  limited  itself  to  a  polite  exchange  of  cards. 
Generally  speaking,  you  never  expect  or  attempt 
to  see  French  people  socially  except  when  they 
have  asked  you  to  one  of  their  regular  days  of 
reception  or  have  made  a  definite  appointment. 
To  call  in  person  at  any  other  time  —  to  do  more 
than  leave  your  card  with  the  concierge  —  would 
be  an  intrusive  pretence  to  mtimacy. 

When  you  are  really  received  in  a  French 
house  — of  whatever  rank  —  you  are  conscious, 
at  first,  of  a  certain  formality,  or  at  least  of  a 
certain  precision  of  conduct  somewhat  foreign 
to  our  usages.  But  you  soon  grow  to  feel  that 
this  is  not  a  bit  invidious.  It  means  only  that 
the  social  customs  of  France  are  more  punctilious 


50         THE   FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

than  ours.  You  must  observe  them  carefully,  if 
you  would  have  the  reward  of  social  kindness. 
Observance  of  them  brings,  in  return,  a  welcome 
which  could  nowhere  be  ^lu-passed  in  hospitality. 
A  characteristic  instance  of  what  I  have  in 
mind  may  be  observed  at  almost  any  French 
dinner-party.  Instead  of  sitting  at  the  ends  of 
the  table,  where  they  are  as  far  apart  as  physical 
conditions  will  permit,  the  host  and  the  hostess 
sit  opposite  one  another  in  the  middle,  where  the 
table  is  narrowest,  and  w^here  they  are  able  at 
once  to  keep  in  touch  with  each  other,  and 
easily  to  talk  with  three  guests  on  either  side 
of  each.  Thus  a  company  of  twelve  is  at  once 
brought  into  a  single  social  group,  and  the  out- 
lying members  of  a  larger  party  are  not  so  far 
away  but  that  they  can  readily  listen  to  the  gen- 
eral talk,  or  even  take  part  in  it.  And  the  talk 
is  always  general  —  addressed,  no  doubt,  to  one 
or  another  of  the  company,  as  the  tact  of  the 
hosts  happens  to  find  pleasantest;  but  never 
broken  into  a  system  of  separate  dialogues,  as  is 
generally  the  case  at  home.  A  French  dinner  is 
not  noisy,  any  more  than  a  French  drawing- 
room  is ;  but  in  either  case  the  deeply  subdued 
tone  of  voice  prevalent  in  England  and  among 
the  better  sort  of  Americans  would  be  almost  a 
breach  of  polite  manners.     Every  social  function 


THE   STRUCTURE   OF   SOCIETY    51 

in  France,  you  grow  to  feel,  even  to  the  most 
informal,  has  a  social  character  far  more  pro- 
nounced than  we  are  used  to  in  America.  The 
individual  is  there  to  enjoy  himself;  but  he  is 
also  there  to  play  his  part.  In  consequence,  all 
social  intercourse  in  France  has  a  quahty  less 
personal,  less  confidential,  somewhat  more  re- 
served than  an  American  is  used  to.  Whoever, 
even  in  private  places,  finds  himself  in  the  pres- 
ence of  fellow-beings,  conducts  himself  in  many 
ways  as  if  he  were  in  public.  The  French  are 
in  no  way  conscious  of  this  phase  of  their  man- 
ners. To  them  it  is  as  normal  as  it  is  novel  to 
an  American  visitor ;  and  it  results  in  a  general 
and  cheerful,  though  not  quite  intimate  convivi- 
ality which  makes  our  own  manners  seem  some- 
what melancholy  in  their  dual  isolation. 

Another  detail  of  French  custom  soon  became 
evident  to  me.  In  any  company  where  the  talk 
is  thus  general  whoever  is  present  may  take  part ; 
there  is  no  need  of  any  other  personal  introduc- 
tion to  a  fellow-guest  than  the  fact  that  you  find 
yourselves,  for  the  moment,  under  a  friend's  roof; 
but  there  is  no  need  of  regarding  the  acquaint- 
ance as  more  than  momentary.  If,  as  a  visitor, 
however,  you  are  presented  by  name  to  any  of 
the  French  people  present  —  particularly  at  a 
dinner-party  —  you  are  rather  expected  to  recog- 


52         THE   FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

nize  the  courtesy  by  leaving  your  card  at  this 
new  friend  s  door  within  twenty-four  hours,  and 
so  referring  to  him  the  choice  of  whether  the  ac- 
quaintance shall  persist.  In  such  cases,  of  course, 
various  questions  of  tact  may  arise.  The  sim- 
plest way  of  settling  them  is  to  take  some  occa- 
sion of  mentioning  to  your  hostess  the  pleasure 
you  have  found  in  meeting  these  delightful 
people.  If,  in  her  opinion,  they  expect  you  to 
call,  she  will  incidentally  tell  you  where  they 
live.  If  she  does  not  afford  you  this  information 
there  is  some  reason  to  infer  that  you  need  not 
pursue  the  matter.  A  foreigner  at  first  presses 
this  sort  of  question  more  directly,  and  is  most 
kindly  and  frankly  answered.  It  is  in  better  ac- 
cordance with  French  tradition,  however,  to  ask 
and  to  learn  incidentally,  as  it  were;  and  after 
a  while  you  grow  French  enough  in  sympathy  to 
feel  that  your  earlier  impulse  of  inquiry  was 
almost  rustically  crude. 

In  the  society  which  I  thus  came  pleasantly 
to  know,  my  position  proved  as  exceptional  as 
that  which  I  enjoyed  for  the  moment  in  the 
French  universities.  Visitors  to  France,  like 
foreign  visitors  to  our  own  or  any  other  country, 
generally  find  themselves  there  in  some  fairly 
distinct  social  surroundings.  Americans,  for 
instance,  are  apt  to  be  received,  according  to 


THE   STRUCTURE   OF   SOCIETY    53 

circumstances  and  position,  by  diplomatic  or 
fashionable  or  artistic  circles.  These  they  some- 
times grow  to  know  pretty  intimately.  It  is  far 
from  usual,  however,  that  an  American  should 
at  once  have  considerable  access  to  French 
society,  and  not  be  confined  to  some  particular 
phase  of  it.  Yet  this  was  precisely  my  situation. 
My  academic  mission  was  addressed  to  no  one 
kind  of  French  people,  —  official,  learned,  artistic, 
financial,  or  commercial;  Christian,  Jewish,  or 
pagan;  distinguished  by  the  graces  of  fashion, 
or  indifferent  to  such  vanities.  It  was  addressed 
equally  to  all.  My  welcome  duty  was  to  culti- 
vate cordial  intercourse,  on  the  most  friendly 
terms,  with  reputable  people  of  every  shade  — 
many  of  them  by  no  means  disposed  to  be  on 
friendly  terms  with  each  other.  So  far  as  lay  in 
my  power,  I  must  identify  myself  with  no  single 
phase  of  the  confused  life  of  modern  France, 
however  that  phase  might  attract  my  sympathy ; 
I  must  be  at  one  with  all  its  phases,  however 
likely  some  of  them  might  have  been,  at  a  less 
critical  moment,  to  excite  my  prejudice.  I  did 
my  best,  with  aU  my  heart;  and  I  have  been 
rewarded  by  sentiments  of  enduring  friendship 
very  wide  in  social  range. 

In  the  nature  of  things,  however,  my  acquaint- 
ance had  its  centre  in  the  universities.     The  uni 


54         THE   FRANCE   OF   TODAY 

versity  officers  with  whom  I  was  brought  into 
professional  contact  were  among  the  first  of  the 
friends  who  received  me  unofficially  as  a  human 
being.  One  and  all  of  them  had  passed  through 
the  various  stages  of  the  rigid  educational  system 
at  which  we  have  glanced  together.  All  had 
attained  some  degree  of  distinction  in  the  pro- 
fession of  learning.  In  the  university  hierarchy 
each  had  his  precise  place,  which  involved,  of 
course,  a  certain  degree  of  recognition  in  official 
society  —  a  status,  on  strictly  formal  occasions, 
something  like  that  which  would  anywhere  exist 
in  the  case  of  military  or  naval  officers.  In  the 
general  relations  of  private  life,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  social  circumstances  of  these  university 
officials  were  controlled,  as  would  be  the  case 
anywhere,  by  more  personal  considerations.  And 
these  were  perhaps  more  evident  in  France  than 
they  might  have  been  elsewhere,  for  the  reasons 
that  the  structure  of  French  society  remains 
rather  rigid,  and  that  university  life  there  is  so 
professional  a  matter  that  it  has  hardly  any  of 
the  convivial  character  which  marks  university  life 
in  England,  and  to  some  degree  in  America  as 
well. 

My  colleagues,  accordingly,  varied  widely  in 
their  social  relations,  according  to  their  origin, 
their  disposition,  and  their  fortune.     A  few  were 


THE   STRUCTURE   OF   SOCIETY    55 

of  aristocratic  type ;  a  few  were  able  and  hon- 
orable men  who  had  risen,  by  force  of  ability 
and  industry,  from  the  common  people.  Most 
of  them,  however,  though  not  forming,  in  their 
quality  of  professors,  a  class  apart,  proved  to  be 
living  much  as  their  fathers  and  their  grand- 
fathers had  lived  before  them  —  to  be  continuing 
and  sustaining  the  general  social  traditions  in 
which  they  had  been  born  and  bred.  And  when 
men  of  this  kind,  whatever  their  condition  of 
fortune  or  the  scale  of  their  households,  fell  to 
speaking  of  themselves  and  of  their  friends,  they 
used  a  word  which  foreigners  are  apt  completely 
to  misapprehend.  As  simply  as  Englishmen  in 
similar  circumstances  describe  themselves  as  of 
the  middle  class,  these  French  friends  of  mine 
spoke  of  themselves  as  bourgeois. 

Despite  our  fondness  for  democratic  common- 
place, we  Americans  are  apt  to  have  a  weak- 
ness which  makes  us  fancy  this  term  —  like 
its  English  equivalent  —  to  be  invidious.  Our 
classic  conviction  that  all  men  are  created  equal 
assumes  in  its  social  aspect  a  peculiar  form  ;  it 
contents  itself  on  everybody's  part  with  a  dog- 
matic denial  of  social  superiority.  Every  Ameri- 
can believes  that  he  should  derogate  from  his 
personal  dignity  if  he  did  not  assume  and  assert 
himself  to  be  as  good  as  the  best  anywhere.     By 


66      ,THE  FRANCE  OF  TODAY 

no  means  all  of  us  stop  to  consider  the  conclu- 
sions obviously  involved  in  this  conviction.  If 
we  are  as  good  as  the  best,  it  follows  as  the  light 
the  day  that  those  who  are  not  of  the  best  are 
not  so  good  as  we.  Wherefore  any  foreigner 
who  frankly  acknowledges  himself  secondary  to 
any  other  is  apt  to  impress  us  as  secondary  to 
ourselves.  The  result  is  often  comical  —  at  least 
in  the  eyes  of  the  foreigners  concerned,  who 
cannot  perceive  why  a  good  Yankee  who  has 
made  an  honest  fortune  should  share  the  aristo- 
cratic prejudice  of  societies  which  regard  the  fact 
that  a  man  is  engaged  in  business  as  a  reason 
why  he  should  not  be  invited  to  dinner.  But 
there  is  no  doubt  that  your  stout  Yankee  does 
so,  which  has  a  good  deal  to  do  with  the  artless 
preference  of  American  girls  who  marry  abroad 
for  husbands  who,  whatever  their  personal  merits, 
are  duly  equipped  with  titles.  Accordingly,  we 
Americans  are  given  to  innocent  wonder  as  to 
how  self-respecting  Englishmen  can  admit  them- 
selves to  belong  to  the  middle  class  —  which 
involves  admission  that  a  class  in  existence  is 
superior.  And  when  it  comes  to  the  analogous 
French  term  bourgeois,  we  find  it  so  far  from 
congenial  that  you  need  not  listen  long  to  hear 
Americans  using  it  as  contumeliously  as  if  we 
were  all  dukes  and  peers. 


THE   STRUCTURE   OF   SOCIETY  57 

For  this  prejudice  of  ours  there  is  an  obvious 
reason,  not  generally  remarked.  Our  impres- 
sions of  French  society  are  almost  always  indirect. 
They  are  derived  either  from  accounts  of  it  fur- 
nished by  compatriots  who  have  enjoyed  the 
privilege  of  seeing  it  with  greater  or  less  inti- 
macy, or  else  from  books  written  by  the  French 
themselves.  In  general,  our  compatriots  who 
have  seen  French  life  belong  to  one  of  four 
classes :  diplomatists,  artists,  people  of  some  pre- 
tence to  fashion,  and  residents  in  the  American 
colony  of  Paris.  All  four  of  these  classes  observe 
French  society  from  angles  not  favorable  to 
bourgeois  sympathy.  Diplomatists  have  their 
own  special  world,  closely  related  to  the  actual 
possessors  of  political  power  everywhere,  and 
accustomed  —  whatever  the  personal  origin  of  its 
members  —  to  share  the  sentiments  as  well  as  to 
assist  in  the  functions  of  sovereignty,  whose 
concern  with  the  middle  classes  has  a  quality 
of  benevolent  patronage.  American  artists  cul- 
tivate and  rather  exaggerate  the  distaste  for 
humdrum  and  thrifty  virtues  which  has  always 
animated  the  temper  of  Europeans  devoted  to 
the  fine  arts.  Pretenders  to  fashion  would  sac- 
rifice this  meaning  of  their  existence  —  so  far  as 
it  has  any  —  if  they  did  not  echo  the  common- 
pi  aces  of  the  noble  society  to  which  they  ingenu- 


58         THE  FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

ously  aspire.  And  "colonists,"  particularly  if 
their  personal  acquaintance  with  the  French  is 
limited,  preserve  their  self-respect  by  excessively 
cherishing  the  conventional  opinions  which  flour- 
ish at  home.  Americans  in  France,  accordingly, 
whether  diplomatic,  artistic,  fashionable,  or  colo- 
nial, are  very  apt  to  speak  of  bourgeois  —  people 
of  whom  their  knowledge  is  usually  external  — 
as  of  inferior  beings. 

When  it  comes  to  the  impressions  of  France 
which  we  derive  from  French  writers,  the  case 
proves  similar.  Broadly  speaking,  these  writers 
are  of  two  classes.  The  first,  and  the  elder,  con- 
sists of  those  writers  of  memoirs  who  have  so 
long  ornamented  French  literature ;  the  second, 
and  more  modern,  consists  of  the  novelists  and 
dramatists  whose  work  has  been  so  plenteous 
and  so  admirable  during  the  last  hundred  years. 
In  general,  the  writers  of  memoirs  have  been 
aristocrats,  with  all  tlie  limitations  of  their  class ; 
in  general,  the  writers  of  novels  and  plays  have 
been  eminent  personages  in  the  world  of  fine  art, 
with  equally  pronounced  limitations  of  a  some- 
what different  complexion.  The  one  point  in 
which  the  sentiments  of  these  classes  regularly 
agree  happens  to  be  that  both  regard  the  bour^ 
gedsie  externally  and  with  imperfect  cordiality. 
Accordingly,  our  French  accounts  of  bourgeois 


THE   STRUCTURE   OF   SOCIETY   59 

character  are  apt  to  harmonize  with  those  fur- 
nished us  by  compatriots.  They  present  it  to 
us  as  on  the  whole  sordid,  uninteresting,  and 
vulgar ;  at  best  they  dispose  us  to  regard  it  as 
what  the  cant  of  a  few  years  ago  used  to  call 
Philistine. 

Hampered  with  such  inevitable  prepossessions 
as  these  influences  involve,  I  was  somewhat 
startled  by  the  assurance  with  which  so  many 
of  my  French  friends  spoke  of  themselves  as 
bourgeois.  To  their  minds  the  term  evidently 
suggested  nothing  which  involved  the  smallest 
sacrifice  of  self-respect.  The  word  seemed  to 
them  no  more  invidious  than  the  word  Yankee 
would  seem  to  an  honest  gentleman  of  Boston. 
It  implied  only  what  any  candid  man  is  willing  to 
admit  anywhere  —  a  simple  statement  of  incon- 
testable fact.  In  any  society  which  has  reached 
the  state  of  civilized  organization  there  must 
always  be  various  kinds  of  people.  In  most 
countries  there  have  been  more  or  less  acknowl- 
edged governing  classes  —  priestly,  military,  bu- 
reaucratic, noble,  and  the  like.  In  all  societies 
there  have  inevitably  been  laboring  classes.  In 
all  healthy  societies  there  have  been  classes  be- 
tween the  two.  Such  classes  exist  to-day  in 
England  and  in  France,  extending  from  every- 
body   engaged    in    the   learned    professions,    in 


60         THE  FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

finance,  or  in  commerce,  to  the  smallest  shop- 
keepers. In  England  such  people  call  themselves 
of  the  middle  class ;  in  France  they  call  them- 
selves bourgeois.     That  is  the  whole  story. 

It  would  be  the  whole  story,  at  least,  for  any- 
body but  ourselves  of  America.  The  accidents 
■  of  our  political  and  social  history  have  prevented 
the  growth  in  our  country  of  any  rigid  class  sys- 
tem. In  consequence,  our  professional  men  and 
our  chief  men  of  business,  flourishing  in  regions 
where  no  military  or  landed  aristocracy  has  kept 
their  aspirations  in  check,  have  been  apt  to 
develop,  together  with  the  sound  middle-class 
virtues  necessary  to  their  existence  anywhere 
else,  a  rather  unusual  degree  of  that  wholesome 
self-confidence  which  is  among  the  stronger  vir- 
tues of  foreigners  of  rank.  To  be  sure,  this  has 
never  resulted  in  anything  like  acknowledged 
hereditary  dignities.  Yet  anyone  who  under- 
stands the  actual  structure  of  American  society, 
past  or  present,  must  admit,  even  among  our 
republican  selves,  the  existence  —  at  any  given 
time  —  of  certain  distinguishable  social  classes. 
We  have  always  had  fellow  citizens  whose  cir- 
cumstances have  allowed  them  a  range  of  free- 
dom not  open  to  those  who  were  less  able  or  less 
fortunate.  We  have  always  had  our  leaders  of 
the  professions,  in  former  times  perhaps  more 


THE   STRUCTURE   OF   SOCIETY   61 

secure  of  general  esteem  than  has  been  the  case 
since  the  Civil  War.  We  have  always  had  our 
honorable  men  of  wealth,  rather  more  conspic- 
uous in  our  recent  period  of  national  expansion 
and  prosperity  than  they  used  to  be  in  simpler 
times.  At  the  other  end  of  the  social  scale,  we 
have  always  had  our  laboring  classes,  as  well. 
Between  these  two  extremes  there  have  always 
existed  other  classes,  not  so  fortunate  as  the  one, 
more  so  than  the  other.  The  flexibility  of  our 
;  system  has  prevented  these  worthy  people  from 
f  admitting  to  themselves  precisely  the  position 
f  they  perforce  occupy.  Yet  obviously  it  is  neither 
so  influential  as  that  of  some  compatriots  nor  so 
submerged  as  that  of  others.  Like  that  of  both 
the  other  kinds  of  people,  meanwhile,  it  is  com- 
pletely compatible  with  self-respect  and  with 
edifying  conduct  of  life.  The  fact  that  we  have 
no  accepted  name  for  this  social  situation  doubt- 
less reveals  a  sensitive  weakness  in  our  national 
temper;  but  it  cannot  disguise,  even  from  our- 
selves in  honest  moments,  that  most  of  us,  and 
most  of  our  acquaintance,  are  neither  "  captains 
of  industry  "  nor  "  knights  of  labor."  And  all 
that  the  term  middle  class  implies  in  England, 
or  the  term  bourgeois  in  France,  is  that  such  a 
class,  inevitable  in  any  civilized  society,  has  the 
candor  to  acknowledge  its  existence.     The  char- 


62         THE  FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

acteristic  vice  of  middle-class  people  is  doubtless 
vulgarity;  but  this  no  more  means  that,  as  a 
class,  the  bourgeois  are  vulgar  than  the  fact  of 
any  other  characteristic  vice  comprises  the  whole 
character  of  the  class  which  it  tends  to  weaken. 
One  might  as  soon  pretend  that  all  aristocracy 
is  heartlessly  insolent,  all  art  shamelessly  licen- 
tious, all  capital  cynically  rapacious,  all  labor 
stupidly  brutal.  " 

So  far  from  comprehensively  characteristic, 
indeed,  is  the  occasional  vulgarity  of  the  French 
bourgeoisie,  that  anyone  who  should  approach 
them  without  prepossession  would  hardly  per- 
ceive it  for  himself.  His  first  impression  would 
rather  be  of  the  quality  which  is  implied  in  the 
very  frankness  with  which  they  describe  them- 
selves as  bourgeois.  He  could  hardly  fail  to 
recognize,  with  admiration,  the  genuine  simplicity 
of  their  temper,  their  cheerful  readiness  to  admit 
the  circumstances  of  their  lives  and  to  adapt  their 
livj^s  to  their  circumstances,  without  a  touch  of 
either  pretentiousness  or  false  shame.  If  they  en- 
tertain him  in  their  homes,  for  example,  they  do 
so  according  to  their  means.  Very  likely,  they 
make  an  occasion  of  his  visit ;  if  they  failed  to, 
they  would  be  falling  into  the  pretentiousness  of 
making  believe  that  such  visits  occurred  every 
day,  or  into  the  still  worse  pretentiousness  of 


THE   STRUCTURE   OF   SOCIETY  63 

neglecting  hospitality.  But  a  man  whose  means 
are  limited,  and  whose  daily  life  is  simple,  would 
never  dream  of  making  the  circumstances  of  your 
reception  inharmonious  with  the  surroundings  in 
which  he  receives  you.  Everyone  has  his  own 
scale  of  life,  prudently  adapted  as  a  rule  to  the 
means  at  his  command.  Everyone  lives  and 
entertains  accordingly. 

The  next  impression  of  a  candid  visitor  might 
well  be  that  these  new  friends  are  remarkable  for 
intellectual  honesty.  Of  course  they  have  their 
prejudices ;  if  they  had  not  they  would  lack  one 
of  the  most  profoundly  attractive  qualities  of 
human  nature.  And  in  various  ways  their  prej- 
udices may  not  readily  coincide  with  your  own. 
You  can  never  resent,  however,  the  honesty  with 
which  these  Frenchmen  cherish  their  opinions, 
nor  fail  to  respect  the  courteous  fearlessness  with 
which  they  express  them.  Some  concern  man- 
ners ;  some  concern  onvictions  —  social,  reU- 
gious,  political  —  with  which  you  are  not  familiar ; 
some  obviously  result  from  limitations  of  environ- 
ment, distinctly  different  from  the  perhaps  equal 
limitations  to  which  you  have  been  subjected  at 
home.  But  however  limited  a  Frenchman's 
range  of  vision  may  sometimes  appear,  you  will 
never  find  it  inconsistent  with  a  stimulating 
degree    of   intellectual    activity.      The    French 


64         THE   FRANCE   OF   TODAY 

mind  is  alert  and  logical ;  otherwise  French  soci- 
ety and  French  universities,  to  go  no  further, 
could  not  persist  so  systematically  as  they  do. 
And  this  alert  and  logical  habit  is  quite  as  obvi- 
ous a  factor  as  any  phase  of  prejudice  in  the 
candor  with  which  the  bourgeois^  of  whatever 
shade,  consider  both  the  details  of  their  daily 
affairs  and  any  questions  which  chance  to  arise 
for  discussion.  The  pervasive  frugality  and 
thrift  of  French  life  is  implicit  evidence  of  the 
intellectual  sincerity  I  have  in  mind.  More 
stirring  evidence  of  it  anyone  would  find  in  talk 
with  the  French  which  should  rise  to  the  dignity 
of  an  exchange  of  ideas.  Cherishing  their  pre- 
possessions as  premises,  Frenchmen  will  unpre- 
tentiously endeavor  either  to  reconcile  any  new 
suggestion  with  their  systems,  or  else  to  prove 
the  suggestion  mistaken,  in  fact  or  in  reasoning. 
As  marked  as  their  virtue  of  simplicity  is  that  of 
the  honesty  with  which  they  confront  the  cir- 
cumstances and  the  problems  of  earthly  per- 
plexity. 

Meanwhile,  a  third  quality,  of  inspiring  strength, 
could  hardly  fail  to  impress  you.  This  is  one 
which  any  visitor  to  the  universities  must  al- 
ready have  felt  in  the  character  and  the  con- 
duct of  both  teachers  and  students  —  cheerful 
and   unremitting   industry  in  the   serious   work 


THE   STRUCTURE   OF   SOCIETY  65 

of  life.  On  the  surface,  perhaps,  the  French 
still  preserve  something  of  the  gayety  which 
has  made  foreigners  suppose  them  to  be  agree- 
ably frivolous.  When  you  grow  to  know  them, 
at  least  among  the  bourgeoisie,  this  characteristic 
is  no  longer  salient.  Rather  you  find  yourself 
constantly  surprised  that  so  many  people,  with 
honest  simplicity  of  heart,  can  devote  themselves 
so  assiduously  to  the  far  from  alluring  duties  — 
professional,  domestic,  or  whatever  else — of  daily 
weekly,  yearly  existence.  However  gay  a  friend 
may  be  concerning  trivial  matters,  you  may  be 
sure  that,  at  heart,  he  will  take  life  in  earnest ; 
and  that  when  it  comes  to  hard  work,  he  will 
attack  it  with  a  persistent  vigor  which  might 
sometimes  set  a  Yankee  to  wondering  whether 
our  lucky  compatriots  have  any  notion  of  how 
lovingly  we  cherish  our  national  aptitude  for 
dawdling.  I  do  not  remember  that  I  ever  saw 
a  French  boy  whittle  a  stick ;  I  doubt  whether 
you  could  quite  make  one  understand  why  any- 
body should  like  to. 

This  honesty,  simpKcity,  and  industry  of  the 
French  bourgeois  could  not  help  resulting  in  an 
impression  so  far  from  one  of  vulgarity  as  to 
be  rather  one  of  dignity.  And  together  with 
this  comes  another  —  a  shade  more  precise  — 
which  if  possible  is  further  from  vulgarity  stilL 


6«         THE  FRANCE  OF  TODAY 

The  French  bourgeois  have  a  quality  for  which  I 
know  no  better  EngUsh  term  than  one  which  al- 
most suggests  aristocratic  grace  —  the  term  good- 
breeding.  To  put  the  matter  otherwise,  there  is 
a  familiar  French  word  which  so  resembles  a  fa- 
miliar English  one  that  it  has  given  rise  to  much 
misconception.  This  word  is  gentilhomme.  It 
looks  remarkably  like  gentleman,  and  indeed  it 
literally  means  neither  more  nor  less  than  that. 
In  France,  however,  the  word  has  retained  its 
original  meaning ;  it  signifies  gentleman  only  in 
that  limited  English  sense  which  would  confine 
it  to  men  of  gentle  or  noble  birth.  It  implies  not 
personal  virtues  but  social  rank ;  and  the  famihar 
title  of  Moli^re's  comedy  —  "  Le  Bourgeois  Gen- 
tilhomme  "  —  is  consequently  a  humorous  contra- 
diction in  terms.  No  frank  bourgeois  would  ever 
pretend  to  be  a  gentilhomme ;  to  do  so  would  be 
to  deny  that  he  was  bourgeois,  and  thus  not  only 
to  make  himself  ridiculous,  but  also  to  sacrifice 
his  self-respect.  In  our  later  English  sense  of 
the  word  gentleman,  we  find  a  different  concep- 
tion —  a  conception  which  concerns  moral  quali- 
ties so  much  more  than  social  condition  that  the 
French  themselves  sometimes  borrow  the  English 
word  for  precise  expression  of  a  meaning  not  com- 
pletely conveyed  by  any  of  their  own.  This  lack 
in  their  vocabulary,  the  while,  is  not  for  lack  of 


THE   STRUCTURE   OF   SOCIETY    67 

the  thing  which  the  woiid  should  name.  For 
if  there  be  better  gentlemen  on  earth  than  you 
shall  find  far  and  wide  among  the  bourgeoisie 
of  France,  it  has  never  been  my  good  fortune 
to  meet  them.  I  doubt,  indeed,  whether  you 
could  anywhere  find  a  social  class  more  solidly, 
more  profoundly,  more  quietly,  more  admirably 
persistent  than  these  same  bourgeois  of  the  pres- 
ent day.  It  is  a  commonplace  that  the  middle 
class  must  be  the  core  of  any  nation,  compara- 
tively spared  from  the  over-ripeness  of  aristocracy, 
and  from  the  crudity  which  must  everywhere 
be  the  lot  of  the  masses.  The  better  you  come 
to  know  the  middle  classes  —  the  bourgeoisie  — 
of  France,  the  deeper  must  grow  your  conviction 
that  a  nation  of  which  the  core  is  so  sound  must 
be  essentially  vigorous. 

Of  course,  a  social  class  so  comprehensive  as 
the  bourgeoisie,  extending  from  the  summit  of 
professional  life  to  the  base  of  shopkeeping,  can- 
not be  rashly  generalized.  There  are  many  vari- 
eties of  it,  particularly  where  it  approaches  some 
other  phase  of  society.  In  Paris,  for  example, 
the  richer  men  of  business  and  the  more  influen- 
tial practitioners  of  the  learned  professions  tend 
toward  a  scale  and  manner  of  life  very  like  that 
of  aristocracy.  If  in  the  process  they  begin  to 
lose   something  of  their   simplicity,    they  may 


68         THE   FRANCE   OF   TODAY 

perhaps  fall  into  a  certain  ostentation.  But  this 
is  chiefly  what  happens  to  the  newly  rich  any- 
where. The  marvel  in  France  is  not  that  it 
exists ;  but  rather  that  it  is  not  more  frequent 
and  palpable.  The  reason  is  that  so  many  bour- 
geois fortunes  seem  to  be  solid  and,  in  their  way, 
hereditary.  So  long  as  people  are  living  in  the 
manner  to  which  they  were  born,  you  may  al- 
ways trust  them  to  live  with  confident  ease  of 
mood  and  manner,  free  from  the  distortions  of 
undue  self-consciousness. 

Again,  particularly  among  those  university 
people  whose  work  is  concerned  with  matters 
of  literature  or  of  the  fine  arts,  you  will  often 
find  the  temper  and  the  conditions  of  bourgeois 
life  tending  to  merge  with  those  of  the  world  of 
fine  arts.  There  is  a  considerable  frontier  on  the 
borders  of  Philistia  and  Bohemia,  and  the  region 
is  pleasant  to  ramble  about.  For  the  solid  virtues 
whose  enemies  miscall  them  Philistine  tend  to 
correct  the  vagrancies  which  in  full  Bohemia 
appear  excessive  to  unsympathetic  observers ; 
and  the  volatile  impulses  of  Bohemia  tend  to 
counteract  the  want  of  breeze  which  might  make 
the  inner  atmosphere  of  Philistia  a  little  stifling 
to  one  who  did  not  find  it  congenial. 

Again  still,  there  are  phases  of  bourgeois 
life  not  yet  quite  remote  from  the  wholesome 


THE   STRUCTURE   OF   SOCIETY   69 

old  condition  of  peasantry  out  of  which  they 
have  grown.  Among  my  memories  of  France 
there  is  none  more  pleasant,  nor  any  more  full 
of  such  sentiment  as  makes  me  feel  the  bour- 
geoisie remarkable  for  good-breeding,  —  a  gentler 
quality  than  gentle  birth  itself,  —  than  my  mem- 
ory of  the  manner  in  which  a  friend  welcomed 
me  to  his*  home.  And  there,  treated  with  that 
affectionate  respect  which  the  French  so  delight- 
fully show  their  parents,  was  the  old  mother, 
still  in  the  neat  dress  of  the  region  where  every 
country  lass  had  worn  it  fifty  years  ago.  She 
had  very  little  to  say;  but  no  one  could  have 
seemed  happier  or  kinder,  more  at  ease,  less  self- 
conscious,  as  she  ate  a  little  meal  specially  pre- 
pared for  her  rather  exacting  taste  and  habit. 

In  general,  the  while,  one's  impression  of  the 
bourgeoisie  is  not  of  its  frontiers,  but  rather  of 
its  innermost  security.  Perhaps  the  most  vividly 
typical  of  my  memories  concerning  this  is  of  a 
summer  dinner  in  a  provincial  town.  A  manu- 
facturer had  invited  us  to  his  house.  On  going 
thither,  we  found  it  hidden  behind  his  large  fac- 
tory buildings,  and  accessible  only  through  the 
walled  enclosure  where  they  had  grown  up  about 
it.  Indeed,  the  whole  approach  was  so  far  from 
what  one  is  conventionally  used  to  that  I  be- 
gan to  wonder  whether  we  were  not  unwittingly 


70         THE  FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

bound  for  some  sort  of  picnic.  The  house,  when 
we  got  there,  looked  rather  small  —  partly,  I  sup- 
pose, in  contrast  to  the  big  factory  buildings  so 
near  by.  The  moment  you  got  within  its  doors, 
however,  it  proved  commodious,  comfortable,  and, 
above  all,  in  thoroughly  good  taste.  There  was 
not  too  much  of  anything ;  but  everything  was 
worth  while.  The  pictures  were  real  works  of 
art  —  by  the  right  men,  too.  There  were  plenty 
of  books,  evidently  in  use,  and  all  of  the  sort  one 
likes  to  read  —  not  of  the  teasing  kind  which  one 
finds  in  American  railway  stations  and  country 
houses  ;  yet  they  did  not  seem  a  bit  priggish, 
either.  The  dinner  was  memorable,  both  for 
its  quality  and  for  the  skilful  service  thereof 
by  two  or  three  trim  maids.  Apart  from  the 
good  cheer  the  chief  difference  between  this 
occasion  and  a  similar  one  at  home  was  that, 
inasmuch  as  the  occasion  was  not  formal,  the 
men  appeared  in  frock  coats  instead  of  in  even- 
ing clothes,  and  the  women  wore  high-necked 
dresses.  This  is  general  among  the  French 
everywhere,  by  the  way ;  what  we  call  even- 
ing dress  they  seem  to  regard  rather  as  a  cos- 
tume appropriate  only  for  occasions  of  ceremony. 
The  talk  was  animated,  easy,  and  wide  in  its 
range.  And  after  dinner,  in  the  long  summer 
twilight,    before    we    were    summoned    to    the 


THE   STRUCTURE   OF  SOCIETY  71 

drawing-room  for  some  excellent  music,  we  sat 
and  smoked  in  a  library  built  on  an  arch  over 
the  mill-stream.  And  we  looked  through  a 
large  window  at  the  swirling  current,  as  it 
dashed  along  between  walls  and  banks  heavy 
with  verdure,  and  disappeared,  not  far  off,  under 
a  bridge,  still  within  our  host's  premises,  which 
had  spanned  it  —  he  told  me  —  for  more  than 
six  hundred  years. 

He  had  inherited  his  property,  his  duties,  and 
his  house,  I  was  given  to  understand.  He  was 
devoting  his  life  to  the  care  of  them.  He  would 
pass  them  on  to  his  children,  just  as  any  great 
nobleman  might  pass  on  to  his  heirs  the  heredi- 
tary possessions  which  chance  had  placed  for  a 
while  in  his  care.  No  social  type  could  have 
seemed  more  admirably  permanent.  In  the  fine 
little  details  of  accomplishment,  of  impulse,  of 
manner,  you  could  not  have  found  a  better 
gentleman.  And  yet  he  was  in  no  respect  a 
gentilhomme.  He  was  of  the  class  which  the 
old-fashioned  aristocrats  of  France  traditionally 
disdained  as  bourgeois  moyens.  His  house  was 
accessible,  in  all  probability,  only  to  people 
whose  origin  and  whose  personal  traditions  re- 
sembled his  own.  You  felt  there,  beyond  all 
things  else,  that  you  were  in  the  very  heart 
of  the  bourgeoisie  of  France ;   and  furthermore. 


72         THE  FRANCE  OF  TODAY 

that  there  are  few  pleasanter   places,   and   no 
better  ones,  in  all  this  wicked  world. 

Not  the  least  profound  feature  of  your  im- 
pression, the  while,  was  that  these  surroundings 
have  a  quality  of  surprising  fixity.  Among  the 
bourgeoisie  you  find  yourself  in  a  world  of  hered- 
itary tradition,  as  stoutly  cherished  as  the  more 
widely  known  tradition  of  aristocracy,  or  as  the 
more  vagrant  tradition  of  art.  And  any  class 
which  is  animated  by  attachment  to  its  hereditary 
traditions  must  inevitably  be,  to  some  extent,  a 
class  apart  —  a  separate  thing  ;  not  quite  a  caste, 
of  course,  but  not  free  from  caste  virtues  and 
caste  prejudices.  The  virtue  which  from  time 
immemorial  has  distinguished  the  middle  classes 
of  France  is  probably  the  virtue  most  dear  to  the 
middle  class  of  England,  as  well  as  to  the  better 
sort  of  Americans,  among  whom  middle-class 
manners  have  grown  to  something  like  the 
assurance  of  aristocratic  feeling.  In  a  word, 
we  may  call  it  respectability  —  a  somewhat  ex- 
cessive observance  of  regularity  in  the  conduct 
of  life,  a  somewhat  austere  disapproval  of  even 
minor  vagaries.  This  quality  is  not  instantly 
attractive  to  people  whose  taste  for  it  chances 
not  to  be  ancestral.  They  think  it  dull  at  best, 
as  no  doubt  it  is  if  you  do  not  happen  to  enjoy 
it ;  and  when  anybody  thinks  anvthing  dull  any- 


THE   STRUCTURE   OF   SOCIETY  73 

where  he  rarely  resists  the  impulse  to  assert  his 
own  jfreedom  from  dulness  by  declaring  his  opin- 
ion. Now,  even  though  you  may  prefer  to  be 
respectably  dull,  you  resent  being  called  so.  As 
a  natural  result,  the  deepest  prejudice  of  the 
bourgeoisie  is  of  the  self-protecting  kind  which 
entertains  a  certain  suspicion  of  the  imperfectly 
sympathetic  classes  which  environ  it. 

These,  as  we  have  seen,  are  the  aristocracy  and 
the  artists.  Between  them  and  their  bourgeois 
neighbors  there  seems  to  persist  an  immemorial 
hereditary  distrust.  The  traditional  privileges  of 
aristocracy  permitted  them,  and  tended  to  make 
them  pretend  to  delight  in,  a  liberty  both  of 
speech  and  of  conduct  extremely  foreign  to  the 
staid  respectability  of  bourgeois  sentiment.  The 
somewhat  anarchistic  impulse  of  artists  to  assert 
their  individuality  amid  the  benumbing  monot- 
ony of  prim  custom  has  always  tended  to  excite 
them  to  similar  manifestations  of  personal  free- 
dom from  conventionalities.  Both  aristocrats 
and  artists  have  accordingly  been  accustomed,  as 
we  have  seen,  to  represent  the  bourgeoisie  in  a 
far  from  friendly  spirit.  What  is  less  evident 
to  casual  foreigners  is  that  this  sentiment  of  dis- 
trust and  dislike  is  mutual.  Your  typical  bour- 
geois regards  your  aristocrat  or  your  artist  with 
as  little   cordiality   as  is   evident  in  the  more 


74         THE  FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

familiar  opinions  of  aristocrats  and  of  artists 
concerning  the  bourgeoisie. 

The  strength  of  this  resentment  was  oddly 
evinced  one  day  when  I  chanced  to  be  talking 
with  a  bourgeois  friend.  The  matter  under  dis- 
cussion reminded  me  of  a  shrewd  remark  lately 
made  me  by  a  man  who  happened  to  possess 
a  thoroughly  authentic  title.  I  repeated  the 
witticism.  It  seemed  to  impress  my  friend  fa- 
vorably, for  he  eagerly  asked  me  from  whom  I 
had  heard  it.  I  told  him,  asking  in  return 
whether  he  did  not  think  it  admirable.  The 
name  of  the  originator  of  the  epigram  appeared 
to  have  altered  his  estimate  thereof.  It  had  a 
vein  of  good  sense,  he  said,  even  of  wit ;  but  it 
was  too  noble.  "  C'est  trop  noble,"  was  his 
final  opinion. 

On  the  whole,  however,  the  course  of  mod- 
ern history  seems  tending,  in  France  as  well  as 
throughout  the  older  regions  of  Europe,  toward 
modification  of  these  somewhat  obsolete  states 
of  feeling.  The  barrier  between  the  aristocracy 
and  that  part  of  the  bourgeoisie  which  most 
nearly  approaches  it  seems  hardly  so  high  as  used 
to  be  the  case.  For  this  there  are  several  evi- 
dent reasons.  The  privileges  of  aristocracy  have 
long  been  withdrawn ;  for  three  or  four  genera- 
tions all  classes  in  France  have  been  equal  in  the 


THE   STRUCTURE   OF  SOCIETY  75 

sight  of  the  law ;  and  partly  from  a  rigidity  of 
principle  or  of  training  which  has  tended  to 
result  in  imperfect  flexibility  of  intelligence,  the 
aristocracy  has  so  generally  withdrawn  itself 
from  public  affairs  that,  as  a  class,  it  retains  no 
vestige  of  political  power.  Its  importance  is 
only  social.  Now  this  phase  of  its  importance 
seems  to  have  been  rather  rudely  shaken  by  the 
accidents  of  French  history  during  the  past 
hundred  years.  There  remain,  no  doubt,  authen- 
tic titles  of  the  old  regime ;  but  Napoleon  cre- 
ated titles  by  the  hundred,  and  titles  were 
created  under  the  Restoration  and  under  Louis 
Philippe,  and  more  still  by  the  second  empire. 
Again,  if  I  am  not  in  error,  every  son  of  a  baron 
is  himself  a  baron,  too,  and  so  on.  Further- 
more, there  is  no  serious  obstacle  at  this  moment 
—  any  more  than  there  is  in  America  —  to  the 
assumption  of  a  title  by  anybody.  A  highly 
respectable  citizen  of  Boston  is  known  to  have 
been  christened  by  the  name  of  Marquis.  With- 
out scrutiny  of  official  record,  a  stranger  in 
France  might  well  be  at  pains  to  know  whether 
the  same  title  on  a  French  visiting  card  has  any 
more  technically  noble  authority.  The  true  aris- 
tocracy of  France  knows  itself,  of  course,  by 
heart;  but  hardly  anybody  else  knows  it  with 
much   certainty.     And  so  far  as  general  social 


76         THE   FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

importance  goes,  the  frequency  of  French  titles 
and  the  variety  of  their  origin  —  even  when 
they  are  authentic  —  have  probably  done  amal- 
gamating work. 

The  increasing  fortunes  of  many  bourgeois,  the 
while,  and  the  preponderance  of  political  influence 
which  has  been  enjoyed  by  the  bourgeoisie  through- 
out the  past  century  have  done  their  work  as 
well.  Marriages  between  the  two  classes  —  such 
alliances  as  you  will  remember  in  "Mademoiselle 
de  la  Seigli^re  "  and  in  "  Le  Gendre  de  Monsieur 
Poirier  "  —  have  perhaps  grown  more  frequent ; 
and  everybody  knows  that  titled  Frenchmen 
have  often  married  eligible  foreigners.  The  fail- 
ing of  the  old  aristocratic  fortunes,  too,  has  some- 
what modified  aristocratic  opinions  in  other 
matters  than  that  of  marriage.  Particularly  of 
recent  years,  men  of  birth  have  had  the  good 
sense  to  drop  some  of  their  outworn  notions 
concerning  occupation,  and  frankly  to  devote 
their  still  vigorous  energies  to  lucrative  and  re- 
spectable careers  which  their  grandfathers  would 
have  disdained.  In  many  ways,  accordingly,  the 
aristocratic  class  of  France  is  beginning  to  reveal 
itself  to  the  bourgeoisie  as  more  deserving  of 
personal  respect  than  bourgeois  traditions  used  to 
presume.  Still  more  certainly,  as  the  two  classes 
tend  more  cordially  to  mingle,  the  aristocracy 


THE   STRUCTURE   OF   SOCIETY  77 

seem  beginning  to  recognize  in  their  bourgeois 
neighbors  qualities,  ideals,  and  merits  far  more 
resembling  their  own  than  they  had  been  disposed 
to  expect.  For  all  this,  the  real  aristocrats  still 
retain,  I  think,  a  somewhat  excessive  degree  of 
their  ancestral  disdain  for  any  traditional  inferior. 
Hereditary  gentilshommes,  they  do  not  yet  quite 
willingly  admit  that  these  bourgeois,  with  whom 
circumstances  are  gradually  bringing  them  into 
closer  relations,  are  as  good  gentlemen  as  them- 
selves. When  all  is  said  and  done,  however,  you 
can  hardly  help  feeling  that  each  class  is  growing 
more  aware  of  its  community  of  interest  with 
the  other.     They  must  stand  or  fall  together. 

The  relations  of  the  bourgeoisie  with  the  other 
social  class  most  near  them  —  with  artists  in  the 
broadest  sense  of  the  term  —  seemed  to  me,  on 
the  whole,  rather  less  cordial.;  The  world  oi 
French  art,  in  fact,  though  on  the  whole  the 
phase  of  French  society  most  familiar  to  for- 
eigners, who  know  France  chiefly  from  books  or 
pictures,  is  probably  the  phase  of  French  society 
which  these  same  foreigners  least  understand.  I 
am  by  no  means  sure,  indeed,  that  I  came  to  any 
accurate  understanding  of  its  position  myself. 
I  am  sure,  however,  that  my  impressions  of  it 
were  at  once  unexpected  and  distinct. 

Broadly  speaking,  French  artists  of  every  kind 


78        THE   FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

—  literary,  plastic,  dramatic,  musical  —  are  men 
of  bourgeois  origin,  who  are  temperamentally 
impatient  of  the  respectable  restraint  of  conduct 
which  characterizes  bourgeois  behavior.  In  their 
artistic  lives  they  are  by  no  means  frivolous  or 
trivial.  The  sturdily  maintained  academic  stand- 
ards of  France  in  all  matters  of  fine  art  compel 
them  to  a  degree  of  technical  excellence  which 
nothing  but  hard,  prolonged,  whole-hearted  work 
can  attain.  Keen  critical  scrutiny  combines  with 
incessant  competition,  on  all  sides,  to  keep  them 
assiduously  at  their  tasks.  Whether  they  submit 
to  academic  convention  or  rebel  against  it,  the 
case  is  the  same.  As  artists  they  are  as  impres- 
sively and  as  seriously  devoted  to  their  duties  as 
university  professors  are  to  theirs.  You  cannot 
observe  Frenchmen  at  work  anywhere,  in  fact, 
without  reverent  acknowledgment  of  their  inex- 
haustible industry.  The  moment  you  find  your- 
self among  artists  of  the  better  sort,  furthermore, 
you  must  surely  be  impressed  by  the  fervent 
earnestness  of  their  artistic  purpose.  Like  any 
other  human  beings,  they  fall  into  little  groups, 
schools,  sects,  among  themselves,  each  with  its 
virtues  and  vices,  its  powers  and  its  limitations ; 
but,  whatever  the  result  of  their  efforts,  they  give 
themselves  to  their  art  with  all  their  hearts.  Yet 
somehow  as  you  contemplate  French  society  in 


THE   STRUCTURE   OF   SOCIETY    79 

its  entirety,  the  artists,  as  a  class,  seem  distinctly 
apart  from  anybody  else.  They  are  not  aristo- 
crats ;  they  are  not  bourgeois.  They  are  as  good 
gentlemen  as  either,  and  as  honest  men ;  but 
they  form  a  separate  social  group,  so  distinct 
from  the  others  —  and  often  so  far  from  instant 
sympathy  with  the  others  —  that  you  can  hardly 
help  feeling  their  temper  concerning  the  others 
to  be  tinged  rather  with  defiance  than  with 
cordiality. 

Apparently,  at  the  same  time,  their  social  sys- 
tem is  almost  as  definite  in  its  structure  as  that 
of  the  aristocracy  or  that  of  the  bourgeoisie  — 
mingUng  on  its  frontiers  with  each,  but  distmctly 
different  from  either.  Analogies  in  such  delicate 
matters  are  apt  to  be  misleading,  and  perhaps 
invidious.  Yet  I  can  find  no  better  means  of 
indicating  the  position  which  artists,  considered 
as  a  social  type,  seem  to  occupy  in  France  than 
by  comparing  it  with  that  occupied  in  England 
and  in  America  by  professional  actors  —  them- 
selves often  artists,  in  their  own  kind,  of  memo- 
rable importance.  There  is  no  reason  why  a 
dramatic  artist  should  not  be  a  person  of  unsul- 
lied private  character  —  as  indeed  is  frequently 
the  case.  There  is  also  no  reason  why  a  person 
of  anything  but  unsullied  character  should  not 
be  an  excellent  dramatic  artist,     This  common- 


80         THE  FRANCE  OF  TODAY 

place  is  equally  true  of  any  other  earthly  occu- 
pation, from  the  papacy  to  grave-digging.  Just 
why  we  should  assume  that  the  typical  actor 
leaves  something  to  be  desired  in  point  of  per- 
sonal conduct  I  cannot  pretend  to  say.  That  the 
assumption  exists,  particularly  among  austerely 
respectable  Americans,  is  beyond  dispute;  and 
so  is  the  fact  that,  however  cordially  and  unre- 
servedly actors  are  at  present  received  in  English 
and  American  society,  they  are  usually  received 
in  a  manner  which  betrays  an  implicit  assump- 
tion that  somehow  they  form  a  class  apart  —  with 
manners  and  morals,  traditions  and  principles,  of 
their  own. 

Something  closely  analogous  seems  true  of 
art  in  France  throughout  all  its  phases.  The 
instantly  obvious  difference  is  that  the  artists  of 
France  are  not  only  far  more  numerous  than  the 
actors  of  England  and  of  America;  they  are 
usually  more  skilful  throughout  the  range  of  their 
professions,  they  are  more  intensely  industrious, 
more  persistently  in  earnest.  Their  masterpieces, 
whether  you  enjoy  them  or  not,  are  more  nearly 
excellent,  more  surely  noteworthy.  And  the 
social  world  which  they  form  for  themselves  is 
more  systematic  and  more  punctilious  than  is 
the  cheerily  vagrant  Bohemia  of  the  English- 
speaking  stage.     For  all  this,  the  world  of  French 


THE   STRUCTURE   OF   SOCIETY    81 

art  seems  Bohemian  still.  It  may  sometimes 
mimic  aristocratic  grace  or  bourgeois  respecta- 
bility; on  the  surface  it  is  as  orderly  as  bour- 
geoisie or  aristocracy ;  at  heart,  however,  it 
cherishes  something  like  the  Rabelaisian  maxim, 
Fais  ce  que  vouldras.  For  which  it  pays  the  not 
unwilling  penalty  of  tacit  recognition  that  it  is 
distinct  from  either  of  the  other  social  regions 
on  which  it  borders,  and  with  the  denizens  of 
which  it  often  mingles. 

Some  such  view  of  French  artists  as  this  goes 
far  to  explain  why,  as  one  grows  to  know  French 
life  in  other  regions  than  those  of  fine  art,  the 
accounts  of  it  in  French  Hterature  and  the 
reproductions  of  it  on  the  French  stage  are  apt 
to  appear  so  external.  French  men  of  letters 
undoubtedly  know  their  France  inconceivably 
better  than  any  foreigner  can  ever  know  it.  Be- 
yond doubt,  too,  their  earnestness  and  their  skill, 
stimulated  by  intense  criticism  and  competition, 
combine  to  make  their  efforts  sincerely  faithful 
with  whatever  aspect  of  life  they  deal.  And 
yet,  when  all  is  said  and  done,  an  artist  who  any- 
where attempts  to  set  forth  humdrum  existence  is 
inevitably  dealing  with  a  state  of  society  at  once 
unsympathetic  and  not  completely  familiar  to 
his  daily  habit.  This  seems  exceptionally  true  in 
modern  France ;  and  the  general  temper  of  the 


82         THE  FRANCE  OF  TODAY 

work  which  French  writers  and  artists  put  forth 
year  by  year  rather  emphasizes  than  obHterates 
the  line  which  separates  them,  in  sympathy,  from 
the  bourgeoisie.  This  is  one  reason,  I  beheve, 
why  we  foreigners  who  have  known  France 
mostly  through  its  admirable  literature  have  been 
so  apt  to  misconceive  the  prevailing  sentiments 
of  every-day  French  life. 

The  better  sort  of  people  in  France  may  gener- 
ally be  classed  either  in  one  of  the  three  groups 
on  which  we  have  touched — 'jthe  nobility,  the 
bourgeoisie,  and  the  artists  —  or  on  the  borders 
which  separate  them  from  one  another.  As  you 
grow  more  familiar  with  any  of  these  groups, 
you  become  more  aware  of  its  rather  rigid  struc- 
ture. As  you  grow  to  know  something  of  all 
three,  you  come  to  feel  that  in  their  almost  hier- 
archical constitution  they  are  not  only  very  like 
each  other,  but  remarkably  Hke  the  universities 
as  well.  You  begin,  in  short,  to  perceive, 
throughout  French  society,  the  native  charac- 
teristic of  French  temper  which  is  least  evident 
to  foreigners  in  general.  For  all  the  revolutions 
which  have  made  the  French  history  of  the  past 
century  so  disquiet,  the  French  love  of  order 
and  of  system,  the  domestic  conservatism  of 
French  impulse,  has  kept  the  general  structure 
of  French  private  life  far  more  persistent,  more 


THE   STRUCTURE   OF   SOCIETY   83 

traditional)  and  less  flexible  than  we  are  apt  to 
imagine. 

Something  of  what  I  have  in  mind  is  im- 
plied in  the  instantly  obvious  difference  be- 
tween French  visiting  cards  and  those  used  in 
England  and  in  America.  To  all  appearances, 
the  fact  that  my  own  card  bore  nothing  but 
my  name  was  apt  to  excite  surprise  among  my 
French  friends.  The  nature  of  my  temporary 
appointment  at  the  Sorbonne  gave  me,  as  we 
have  seen,  a  fairly  defined  position  in  the  French 
university  system  —  a  respectable  degree  of  offi- 
cial rank.  Any  Frenchman  in  this  position  would 
have  had  his  precise  quaUty  stated  on  his  card  as 
regularly  as  his  name ;  not  to  have  had  it  there 
would  have  implied,  on  his  part,  some  such  per- 
sonal eccentricity  as  occasionally  impels  Ameri- 
cans to  wear  their  hair  long  or  to  affect  visiting 
cards  which  bear  facsimiles  of  their  signatures. 
To  French  minds  unfamiliar  with  other  than 
French  custom,  I  discovered,  the  simplicity  of 
my  regular  card  actually  conveyed  the  impression 
that  I  was  an  ardent  apostle  of  social  equality. 
This  was  rather  comically  revealed  to  me  one 
afternoon  over  a  cup  of  tea.  Before  I  had  per- 
ceived whither  the  pleasant  talk  was  tending,  I 
found  myself  confronted  with  something  as  near 
as  politeness  would  allow  to  a  direct  inquiry  as  to 


84        THE  FRANCE  OF  TODAY 

why  it  was  my  custom  to  refuse  honorary  distinc- 
tions. This  was  evidently  meant  to  afford  me 
an  opportunity  of  stating  the  dignities  which  my 
visiting  card  did  not  reveal.  That  I  returned 
some  elusive  answer  seemed,  on  the  whole,  to 
commend  me  to  my  French  friends.  Extreme 
directness  of  attack  or  reply  is  still  unwelcome  to 
the  civilized  tradition  of  France.  After  all,  it 
was  my  affair,  and  not  theirs.  Whoever  might 
use  a  French  qualification  on  his  card  might  pre- 
sumably use  a  better  one  still  at  home,  where  his 
merits  were  better  known  and  probably  better 
rewarded.  If  not,  it  was  doubtless  because  he 
was  disposed  to  protest  against  official  and  other 
social  hierarchy  with  a  radical  enthusiasm  like 
that  which  induced  Monsieur  de  Lafayette  to 
discard  both  his  marquisate  and  his  particle  of 
nobility.  Such  eccentricity  is  creditable  to  the 
principle  of  the  individual  who  displays  it. 
Whether  it  is  equally  creditable  to  his  good 
sense  is  another  question.  What  remains  be- 
yond question  is  that  it  does  not  seriously  im- 
pair the  dignity  of  the  system  which  it  chooses 
to  ignore. 

The  qualities  and  distinctions  stated  on  French 
visiting  cards  and  the  like  —  on  formal  announce- 
ments of  bereavement,  for  example  —  are  of  va- 
rious kinds.     They  range  from  titles  of  nobility 


THE   STRUCTURE  OF   SOCIETY    85 

to  the  mere  intimation  that  a  man  is  practising  a 
learned  profession,  or  engaged  in  reputable  trade. 
In  general,  they  imply  with  precision  his  place  in 
*TEe  class  of  society  to  which  he  chances  to  belong 
—  noble,  bourgeois y  or  artistic.  Occasionally, 
however,  they  indicate  his  place  in  some  recog- 
nized social  system  apart  from  all  three  phases 
of  personal  station,  and  indeed  embracing  all 
three  together. 

In  the  Chm*ch,  for  instance,  or  in  the  Army  or 
the  Navy,  which  are  obviously  hierarchies  quite 
distinct  from  the  personal  origin  of  the  men  who 
win  place  in  them.  Of  these,  however,  I  hap- 
pened to  see  so  little  that  I  have  no  definite 
opinions  about  them.  It  is  clear,  of  course, 
that  among  good  Catholics  the  personaUty  of 
a  clergyman  counts  for  nothing,  in  comparison 
with  his  spiritual  authority.  _Once  in  holy 
orders,  a  peasant  may  meet,  on  equal  terms,  a 
nobleman  who  would  hold  his  brother  in  disdain. 
And,  at  least  since  the  First  Empire,  French 
officers,  military  or  naval,  have  been  personages 
of  obvious  consideration.  What  is  more,  Church 
and  Army  have  their  own  traditions,  of  far  fromT 
flexible  kind ;  and  excite  much  enthusiasm  or  an- 
tagonism, as  the  case  may  be.  After  all,  how- 
ever, this  is  true  of  the  Church  and  of  the  Army 
almost  anywhere.     For  our  purposes,  it  is  better 


86         THE   FRANCE   OF   TODAY 

to  turn  to  hierarchies  which  are  peculiar  to  France. 
Of  these  the  two  most  evident  are  the  Legion  of 
Honor  and  the  Institute. 

The  Legion  of  Honor,  to  be  sure,  has  become 
so  comprehensive  that  the  right  to  wear  a  red 
ribbon  in  one's  button-hole  has  been  pleasantly 
declared  to  be  more  frequent  in  France  than  lack 
of  this  privilege.  In  all  seriousness,  this  order, 
at  least  in  its  simplest  form,  is  bestowed  with 
almost  prodigal  generosity  on  evident  merit  in 
all  ranges  of  French  life  —  political,  military  or 
n^al,  artistic,  financial,  learned,,  or  whatever 
else.  You  are  not  often  in  a  company  of  a 
dozen  Frenchmen  of  the  better  sort  where  two 
or  three  red  ribbons  and  perhaps  a  red  button 
are  not  worn.  There  are  moods  in  which  you 
would  suppose  that  a  distinction  so  general  must 
make  little  appeal  to  the  imagination ;  but  such 
a  mood  is  not  characteristically  French.  The 
Legion  of  Honor  has  been  refused,  I  believe,  in 
occasional  instances  where  eccentricity  of  tem- 
per, or  lack  of  sympathy  with  the  government 
which  chanced  to  prevail,  have  rendered  it  unwel- 
come to  a  man  who  had  deserved  this  widely-  dif- 
fused distinction.  In  general,  however,  it  is  not 
only  eagerly  welcomed  and  ardently  sought ;  it  is 
honorably  sought  and  welcomed  as  well.  Who- 
ever grows  to  know  modern  French  society,  J 


THE   STRUCTURE   OF   SOCIETY    87 

think,  must  be  surprised  to  recall  the  changing 
sentiments  with  which  he  regards  the  bit  oi^ 
red  ribbon  familiar  to  every  traveller's  eye.  At 
first  it  seems  comically  general ;  then  it  seems 
puzzlingly  various  —  worn  of  right  by  a  be- 
wilderingly  contradictory  diversity  of  persons  : 
noble  and  simple,  learned  and  ignorant,  accom- 
plished and  uncouth.  Finally,  without  pretend- 
ing that  it  has  not  fallen,  now  and  again,  on 
unworthy  breasts,  you  grow  to  feel  that  there 
are  few  presumptions  in  the  world  more  certain 
than  that  a  man  who  has  won  this  decoration  has 
really  shown  himself  superior  to  other  men  about 
him.  This  may  be  as  a  shopkeeper ;  it  may  be 
as  an  actor ;  it  may  be  as  a  poet ;  it  may  be  as  a 
soldier ;  it  may  be  as  a  diplomatist ;  it  may  almost 
be  as  a  saint.  The  Legion  of  Honor  is  as  catholic 
as  the  Church  in  its  relation  to  all  ranges  of  hu- 
man life  and  conduct.  But  the  dignity  it  con- 
fers is  essentially  a  true  one.  Men  who  have 
attained  decoration  have  generally  done  some- 
thing well  enough  to  deserve  honorable  recog- 
nition ;  and  the  very  range  of  decoration  implies 
the  deep  human  truth  that  honorable  work  any- 
where, in  whatever  range  of  occupation  or  of 
society,  is  in  itself  a  reverend  thing.  You  may 
say  clever  things  about  the  rain  of  the  ribbon 
rather  than  the  reign.     You  may  smile,  if  you 


88         THE   FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

like,  at  the  childish  vanity  of  a  nation  which 
can  breed  mature  men  who  care  whether  their 
black  coats  are  relieved  by  red  specks  or  not 
The  Legion  of  Honor  is  not  misnamed  ;  it  im- 
plies two  impulses  deep  in  the  emotional  nature 
of  the  French,  high  and  low  alike  :  an  instinctive 
love  of  order,  of  system,  and  a  fervent  belief  that 
honor  should  be  given  where  honor  is  due. 
^  Open,  like  the  Legion  of  Honor,  to  all  French- 
men who  may  justly  aspire  for  it,  is  the  more 
specific  dignity  of  the,  Institute.  This  learned 
corporation  consists  of  several  separate  academies 
—  of  Political  Science,  of  Inscriptions  and  Belles- 
Lettres,  and  the  Uke  —  of  which  the  most  emi- 
nent is  the  famous  "  immortal "  literary  academy 
of  forty  members,  the  Aca(Jerme  Frangaise. 
Certain  familiar  facts  about  this  throw  light  on 
French  character.  In  principle,  any  Frenchman, 
of  whatever  social  rank,  who  has  attained  the 
highest  distinction  in  art,  in  learning,  in  letters^ 
is  eligible.  There  has  been,  I  believe,  no  period 
in  its  three  centuries  when  it  has  not  counted 
among  its  members  noblemen,  bourgeois,  and 
artists  alike.  But  membership  in  it  does  not 
come  without  the  seeking.  The  French  are  too 
alertly  honest  to  tolerate  the  kind  of  affectation 
most  humorously  prevalent  among  ourselves  — 
that  of  pretending  indifference  to  public  honor. 


THE   STRUCTURE   OF   SOCIETY    89 

and  of  assuming  that  respectable  people  are 
bound  to  behave  in  daily  life  as  if  everybody 
would  like  to  be  a  Cincinnatus.  When  death 
makes  a  vacancy  in  the  Academy,  whoever  be- 
lieves himself  to  merit  the  earthly,  or  Parisian, 
immortality  thus  for  the  moment  accessible,  pro- 
ceeds to  inquire,  of  himself  and  of  his  friends, 
concerning  the  precise  aspect  of  his  chances  for 
it.  If  these  chances  seem  in  any  degree  promis- 
ing, he  courageously  offers  himself  as  a  candidate. 
What  the  preliminary  processes  of  such  can« 
didacy  may  be  I  do  not  know.  The  crucial  part 
of  it  is  a  series  of  some  thirty-nine  personal  calls 
on  the  surviving  members  of  the  Academy,  from 
each  of  whom  the  candidate  formally  requests 
the  favor  of  his  vote.  Sometimes  this  is  cor- 
dially promised  ;  sometimes  the  answer  is  politely 
guarded.  The  visits  do  not  secure  the  votes; 
but  without  them,  I  believe,  no  votes  could  be 
secured. 

Whatever  the  personal  prejudices  of  an  acad- 
emician—  and  these  must  certainly  be  widely  va- 
rious—  most  academicians  concur  in  obedience 
to  the  extremely  catholic  traditions  which  preserve 
the  vitality  of  the  Academy.  Of  course  it  is  aca- 
demic ;  it  could  not  exist  without  sturdy  main- 
tenance of  standards  bound  to  impress  vagrant 
artistic  impulse  as  rigid  and  repellent,  and  bound 


90         THE  FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

to  be  resentfully  contemned  by  many  intelligent 
people  who  are  restive  under  restraint,  or  who 
come  to  believe  themselves  meritoriously  disap- 
pointed. But  these  standards  do  not  confine  the 
membership  of  the  Academy  to  any  one  class  of 
society  or  of  personal  character.  There  is  always, 
I  believe,  at  least  one  eminent  ecclesiastic  among 
its  members  ;  when  I  was  in  France  this  was 
the  venerable  Cardinal  Bishop  of  Autun,  who 
has  since  been  succeeded  by  Cardinal  Mathieu. 
There  are  always  noblemen  who  have  dis- 
tinguished themselves  in  learning;  the  Due 
d'Aumale,  a  royal  prince,  held  his  membership 
of  the  Academy  among  his  dearest  honors. 
There  are  men  of  letters,  too,  scholars  and  play- 
wrights, of  whatever  origin.  At  the  two  public 
meetings  of  the  Academy  which  I  had  the  privi- 
lege of  attending,  the  presiding  member  chanced 
to  be  an  accomplished  dramatist.  The  perma- 
nent secretary  was  M.  Gaston  Boissier,  that  hap- 
pily immortal  scholar  whose  works  have  made 
modern  folk  understand,  for  more  than  fifty 
years,  as  no  one  ever  understood  without  them, 
what  the  human  life  of  ancient  Rome  was  like  in 
the  days  when  the  republic  passed  into  the  em- 
pire, and  the  empire  surged  on  to  its  ruin. 

The  ceremony  of  receiving  a  new  member  into 
the  Academy  is  interesting  and   characteristic. 


THE   STRUCTURE   OF   SOCIETY   91 

In  the  hall  under  the  dome  of  the  Institute  — 
that  dome  so  familiar  to  every  eye  in  Paris 
which  has  looked  across  the  Seine  from  the  quay 
of  the  Louvre  —  a  fortunate  company  is  assem- 
bled which  has  had  the  privilege  of  invitation. 
Every  seat  is  occupied ;  for  the  hall  is  not  very 
large,  and  the  interest  in  the  occasion  is  eager. 
Among  the  company,  if  you  know  anything  of 
your  Paris,  you  will  recognize  people  of  all  ranks 
and  stations  —  noble,  fashionable,  learned,  artis- 
tic, diplomatic,  even  respectably  obscure.  You 
will  see  clergymen  there,  and  actresses  from  the 
Theatre  Fran9ais ;  bearers  of  historic  names  and 
the  wives  of  professors  who  began  their  careers 
in  Breton  lycees;  ambassadors  and  sculptors ; 
journalists  and  generals.  At  a  given  moment 
the  members  of  the  Institute  enter,  with  almost 
ostentatious  informality,  the  semicircle  of  benches 
reserved  for  all  the  academies  alike;  on  these 
occasions  there  seems  no  distinction  between  the 
immortal  Academic  Fran9aise  and  its  less  emi- 
nent fellows.  On  the  presiding  bench,  in  the 
green  uniform  of  the  Academy,  the  principal 
officers  of  the  day  take  their  places  —  the  member 
who  happens  at  that  moment  to  preside,  the  per- 
manent secretary,  and  a  third.  The  other  acade- 
micians seat  themselves  anywhere  among  their 
fellow-members   of  the   Institute.     Only  those 


92         THE  FRANCE  OF  TODAY 

who  appear  in  some  official  capacity  —  like  the 
secretaries  of  the  lesser  academies  —  generally 
wear  their  uniforms.  The  aspect  of  the  company 
is  that  of  a  group  of  gentlemen,  on  pleasantly 
equal  terms,  who  are  separated  from  the  pubUc 
by  a  conventional  barrier  implying  the  momen- 
tary inaccessibility  of  their  eminence,  and  per- 
mitting them  serenely  to  ignore  the  presence  of 
anyone  but  themselves. 

This  medley  of  solemnity  and  simplicity  per- 
vades the  whole  ceremony.  In  a  very  few  formal 
words  —  hardly  more  than  "  La  parole  est  a  M. 
X"  —  the  presiding  officer  announces  that  the 
fortunate  candidate  for  immortality  is  expected 
to  speak.  The  candidate  accordingly  rises  from 
his  seat,  somewhere  on  the  benches,  between  two 
uniformed  academicians  who  have  been  charged 
with  the  pleasant  duty  of  introducing  him ;  and 
courageously  delivers  in  impeccable  French  a 
perfunctory  and  not  very  audible  eulogy  on  the 
deceased  academician  whom  he  has  been  chosen 
to  succeed.  At  the  close  of  this  masterpiece  of 
mortuary  eloquence  the  presiding  officer  proceeds 
to  the  official  business  of  the  occasion.  And 
this  is  the  most  surprising  part  of  it  all. 

As  a  foreigner,  unfamiliar  with  academic  tra- 
dition, I  was  prepared  for  some  almost  ritual 
ceremony,  of  lastingly  impressive  dignity.     In- 


THE   STRUCTURE  OF   SOCIETY    93 

stead,  the  presiding  officer  only  opened  a  care- 
fully written  manuscript,  which  he  proceeded  to 
read  in  the  simplest  imaginable  way.  It  proved 
to  be  a  cruelly  candid  account  of  just  how, 
in  spite  of  his  incontestable  merits,  the  mani- 
fold faults  and  infirmities  of  the  candidate 
had  impressed  the  academicians  who  had  been 
called  on  to  consider  his  case.  With  due  allow- 
ance for  the  beautiful  precision  of  its  language 
and  the  extreme  aptitude  of  its  thrusts,  it  re- 
minded me  —  so  far  as  I  could  follow  it  —  of  the 
sort  of  discourse  with  which  neophytes  used  to 
be  received  into  college  societies  when  I  was  a 
student  at  Harvard.  GeneraUzed,  it  was  noth- 
ing more  nor  less  than  a  subHmated  process  of 
initiation  at  which  everybody  —  and  most  of  all 
the  victim  —  was  confidently  and  justly  expected 
to  smile.  If  you  had  not  known  what  it  was 
all  coming  to,  you  would  have  been  disposed  to 
expect  that  the  luckless  man  in  question  was 
about  to  be  condemned,  at  best,  to  oblivion. 
Instead,  it  closed  with  the  words  —  pronounced 
with  something  Hke  a  sigh  of  comic  resignation 
—  **  ¥ous  #tes  recu/V-Jfl^herewith  the  function 


ended,  and  the  happiness  of  immortality  was 
conferred  on  one  ^more  honorable  gentleman 
of  France. 

Among  themselves,  it  is  said,  the  academicians 


94         THE   FRANCE  OF  TODAY 

punctiliously  maintain  the  fiction  of  absolute 
equality.  They  are  called  immortals  in  jest ;  so 
long  as  their  earthly  immortality  persists,  they 
make  believe  that  they  are  immortal  in  earnest ; 
and  immortality  doubtless  confers  freedom  from 
the  inconvenience  not  only  of  human  vexation 
but  also  of  human  rank.  Anywhere  else  a  royal 
prince,  like  the  Due  d'Aumale,  would  be  ad- 
dressed as  Altesse ;  a  bishop  as  Monseigneur. 
Here  all  alike  are  addressed  simply  as  Monsieur. 
Noblemen,  bourgeois,  and  artists  alike  —  royal- 
ties, dignitaries  of  the  church,  and  writers  of 
comedy  —  are  just  fellow-beings,  like  blessed 
spirits  before  the  throne  of  grace,  or  American 
college  boys  at  last  admitted  to  Greek-letter 
mysteries.  The  analogy  goes  deep.  This  class 
of  immortal  equals  is  a  class  apart.  It  is  a 
brotherhood  given  to  such  mutual  affection 
and  dissension  as  animates  brotherly  life  in  its 
domestic  phase;  but  banded  together,  so  long 
as  fraternity  exists,  in  common  resentment  of 
unfraternal  meddling  from  without.  And  the 
ingenuous  completeness  with  which  this  highest 
of  French  intellectual  dignities  at  once  admits 
the  eternal  boyishness  of  human  nature,  and, 
with  boyish  generosity,  holds  itself  open  to  any 
aspirant  who  can  prove  his  deserts,  combines 
with  the  fact  of  its  recognized  social  dominance 


THE   STRUCTURE  OF   SOCIETY    95 

in  all  three  social  classes  —  noble,  bourgeois^  and 
artistic  alike  —  to  make  it  perhaps  the  most  pro- 
foundly characteristic  social  fact  in  France. 

At  least,  I  believe,  it  is  the  most  profoundly 
characteristic  of  those  regions  of  French  life  to 
which  the  term  "  society  "  can  fairly  be  applied 
in  any  limited  sense.  It  recognizes,  it  assimi- 
lates, it  harmonizes  within  itself,  aristocracy, 
\bourgeoisie,  and  art.  It  impHes,  more  than 
anything  else,  what  they  possess,  and  what  they 
must  perforce  cherish,  together  and  in  common. 
It  leaves  out  of  sight,  as  any  such  organization 
must  leave,  the  masses  of  the  people.  And  now- 
adays these  masses  are  matters  of  such  conspic- 
uous interest  that  those  are  not  wanting  who 
should  pretend  them  ten  times  more  important 
than  their  comparatively  few  fellow-men  who 
have  managed,  in  one  way  or  another,  to  emerge 
above  the  general  level  of  humanity. 

Of  the  masses  in  France  I  saw  very  little. 
One  heard,  of  course,  a  good  deal  about  them 
from  friends  who  were  eagerly  interested  in  poli- 
tics, in  economics,  or  in  philanthropy ;  but  one's 
knowledge  was  at  best  a  fairly  intelligent  kind 
of  hearsay.  From  this  I  derived  one  or  two 
general  impressions.  Taken  by  and  large,  I  am 
disposed  to  think,  the  unskilled  laborers  of  France 
are  worthily  stupid  to  a  degree  which  must  as- 


96        THE  FRANCE  OF  TODAY 

tonish  anybody  whose  general  estimate  of  French 
character  is  derived  from  the  alert  intelligence 
exhibited  by  such  Frenchmen  as  we  have  hitherto 
been  considering.  Certainly  what  I  happened  to 
see  in  travel  of  the  peasantry  and  of  the  lower 
classes  in  the  cities  went  far  to  justify  the  cari- 
catures just  now  so  widely  familiar  in  comic  jour- 
nals or  on  the  stage.  Of  recent  years,  on  the  other 
hand,  I  was  led  to  believe,  the  skilled  labor  of 
France  has  developed  a  degree  and  a  kind  of  in- 
telligence which  is  both  impressive  and  mislead- 
ing. Skilled  laborers  have  been  intellectually 
trained  beyond  any  condition  in  their  previous 
history ;  they  have  been  immensely  stimulated,  in 
both  thought  and  feeling,  by  so  unprecedented 
political  and  economic  circumstances  as  have 
ever5rsvhere  perplexed  the  social  history  of  recent 
times;  and,  being  without  prepossessing  tradi- 
ng tions,  they  seem  at  this  moment  Jess  hampered  by 
\\  jl  hereditary  prejudice,  more  frankly  curious,  and 
\ \J  to  all  appearances  more  open-minded  than  any 
^^  other  class  of  people  in  their  aspiring  country. 

This  apparent  open-mindedness  of  skilled  la- 
bor in  France  has  deeply  impressed  many  edu- 
cated Frenchmen  whose  personal  sympathies  are 
philanthropic  or  radical.  It  goes  far  to  justify, 
at  least  in  honest  argument,  the  startling  ten- 
dency to  socialism  so  evident  throughout  the 


THE  STRUCTURE  OF  SOCIETY    97 

world  to-day,  and  so  extremely  prevalent  among 
French  people  of  a  character  which  might  lead 
you  to  expect  that  they  would  regard  social 
revolution  with  suspicion.  What  we  need  to  re- 
vive the  world,  they  seem  to  believe,  is  freedom 
from  the  tyranny  of  prejudice  —  generous  open- 
ness of  mind.  Among  the  established  classes  — 
noble,  bourgeois,  artistic,  alike  —  they  look  for 
this  in  vain.  In  meetings  of  skilled  workmen, 
assembled  to  discuss  any  topic  of  social  conse- 
quence, they  find  it.  A  company  of  devout  hour* 
geois,  as  a  socialistic  friend  told  me,  will  not 
listen  to  a  speech  from  an  honest  free-thinker; 
they  will  execrate  him,  shout  him  down  —  "ils 
le    conspuent."    ^    company    of   free-thinking,JL 

trades-unionists  will   listen   to  the  unwelcome 

convictions  -of  an  honest  priest  as  respectfully  as 
if  he  were  preaching  what  they  hold  better  than 
Law  or  Gospel.  Better  still,  they  will  answer 
him  with  fair  argument,  or  something  as  near  it 
as  their  powers  can  command.  They  will  weigh 
what  is  said  on  either  side.  Wherefore,  your 
socialist  concludes,  salvation  is  to  be  sought 
among  the  intelligent  masses. 

Perhaps  so.  Only  the  future  can  tell.  To  my 
mind,  this  inspiring  candor  of  the  worthier  kind 
of  laboring  men  seemed  rather  a  normal  phase 
of  social  youth.     In  earlier  days  they  had  never 


98         THE   FRANCE  OF  TODAY 

thought  at  all.  Stimulated  to  thought,  they 
begin  to  see,  with  the  unqualified  precision  of 
juvenility,  how  many  ways  there  are  of  confront- 
ing problems,  and  how  much  better  the  way  they 
H  may  chance  to  prefer  must  be  than  any  other. 
Still  innocent  of  the  inexorable  test  of  responsi- 
bility,  they  display  to  aii  in^imigTegree  the 
infant  virtues  of  the  irresponsible.  Give  them 
their  way,  let  them  feel  the  benumbing  perplexity 
of  responsible  power ;  and  who  knows  but  you 
shall  find  your  generous  confidence  resulting  in 
the  worst  jolt  yet  known  out  of  the  frying-pan 
into  the  fire? 

At  all  events,  one  fact  seems  fairly  clear.  The 
lower  classes,  stupid  or  graced  with  the  candor  of 
open  minds,  are  apt  instinctively  tojdistrust  the 
upper  classes.  And  this  tend^ency  is  beginnmg, 
in  some  degree,  to  diminish  the  mutual  distrust 
of  the  upper  among  themselves.  In  the  face  of 
what  nobody  can  deny  to  be  a  common  danger, 
nobles,  bourgeois,  and  artists  alike  seem  some- 
what more  willing  than  of  old  to  recognize  the 
interests  and  the  ideals  which,  each  in  their  own 
'^ay,  they  traditionally  cherish  in  common. 
This  tendency  to  concentration  among  the 
higher  classes  of  French  society,  however,  is 
as  yet  impalpable.  It  may  not  really  exist  at 
alL      My  sympathetic  wish  to  perceive  it  has 


THE  STRUCTURE   OF   SOCIETY    99 

perhaps  led  me  into  the  error  of  supposing  it  con- 
ceivable. What  is  surely  no  error  is  that  all  the 
upper  classes  have  in  common  more  qualities, 
more  strength,  more  virtue  in  the  good  old 
sense  of  the  term,  than  any  of  them  are  as 
yet  quite  ready  to  admit.  Among  noblemen, 
among  bourgeois^  among  artists,  you  can  recog- 
nize everywhere  that  honesty  of  purpose,  that 
dignity  of  character,  that  self-abnegating  devo- 
tion to~"3uEy'^  which  combine  in  the  character 
^  a  true  gentleman.  If  those  whose  ideals 
are  truly  in  harmony  can  ever  learn  to  speak 
a  common  language  of  the  heart,  there  is  little 
to  fear. 

The  less  to  fear,  I  believe,  because  the  more 
one  sees  of  France  the  less  apparent  is  that  so- 
cial peculiarity  which  foreigners  are  often  led 
to  suppose  the  most  deeply  characteristic 
In  certain  aspects,  no  doubt,  French  society  is 
morally  corrupt.  No  civilized  society  has  yet 
gladdened  this  planet  without  considerable  cor- 
ruption to  counterbalance  its  merits.  You  might 
as  wisely  expect  a  human  organism  to  flourish  free 
from  all  trace  of  disease  or  of  decay.  This  does 
not  mean  that  we  should  not  do  our  best,  socially 
and  personally,  to  fight  the  microbes.  But  no 
sane  man  foresees  the  end  of  microbes  so  long 
as  anything  be  left  for  microbes  to  prey  on; 


100       THE  FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

they  are  a  sad  condition  of  existence.  The 
real  question  is  whether  an  organism,  social  or 
physical,  has  the  kind  of  strength  which  shall 
combat  them  victoriously. 

Undoubtedly  there  is  a  popular  impression  that 
French  society  is  morally  diseased.  On  a  ques- 
tion so  delicate  as  this,  furthermore,  it  is  hard 
to  pronounce  a  confident  opinion  which  should 
go  far  to  contradict  this  commonplace  assump- 
tion. One  fact,  nevertheless,  remains  true.  The 
more  you  see  of  French  people  as  they  live 
among  themselves,  in  whatever  station,  the  less 
your  attention  is  called  to  such  irregular,  if  inter- 
esting, social  phenomena  as  foreign  gossip  had 
led  you  to  expect.  On  the  contrary,  you  are 
increasingly  impressed  not  only  with  the  general 
regularity  of  their  lives,  but  with  the  surprising 
fact  that  this  general  regularity  seems  to  have  a 
very  strong  hold  on  their  affections.  It  can 
hardly  be  long,  indeed,  before  you  begin  to 
wonder  whether  anyone  can  get  near  to  the  heart 
of  them  without  sympathetic  understanding  of 
the  intensity  with  which  they  cherish  their 
domestic  relations. 


Ill 

THE  FAMILY 

PERHAPS  the  first  experience  which 
began  to  make  me  feel  what  family  Ufe 
means  to  the  French  was  that,  when 
friends  began  to  invite  us  to  their  houses  infor- 
mally, particularly  at  mid-day,  one  of  my  chil- 
dren, who  happened  to  be  with  us,  was  generally 
included  in  the  invitation.  At  a  ceremonious 
dinner  or  reception,  of  course,  this  would  not 
have  been  the  case.  The  shade  of  difference 
between  such  an  occasion  and  a  more  intimate 
welcome  to  a  household,  where  you  may  see 
people  as  they  hve,  lay  in  the  fact  that,  in  the 
latter  case,  a  child  seemed  to  be  expected  as 
regularly  and  as  cordially  as  the  parents.  To 
our  French  ftiends,  in  short,  for  all  the  kindness 
which  they  showed  us  individually,  we  seemed 
primarily  a  family,  for  a  little  while  visiting  their 
'""feasant  country. 

As  acquaintance  thus  began  to  strengthen 
into  friendship,  I  grew  aware  that  a  whole  range 
of  commonplace,  which  would  formally  occur 


102       THE  FRANCE  OF  TODAY 

anywhere,  has  in  France  the  sanction  of  genuine 
feeling.  When  we  are  favored  at  home  with  polite 
inquiry  as  to  our  near  relatives,  or  with  pleasant 
messages  to  such  of  them  as  the  inquirer  may 
chance  to  have  known,  such  amenities  seem 
either  matters  of  mere  politeness  or  else  dictated 
by  somewhat  alert  curiosity.  In  France  you 
soon  come  to  feel  that  this  interest  in  children 
whom  your  friends  have  never  seen  is  no  mere 
matter  of  form ;  it  is  based  on  an  instinctive 
assumption  that  these  children  must  be  con- 
stantly, anxiously,  lovingly  in  your  own  mind,  — 
that,  of  course,  they  are  the  things  nearest  to  your 
heart.  So,  when  French  people  come  to  care 
for  you,  they  show  their  regard  by  sincere  and 
alert  interest  in  the  family  of  which  you  are  the 
head,  or  a  member.  The  fact  of  friendship  im- 
plies welcome  not  only  from  man  to  man,  but 
from  all  of  one  family  group  to  all  of  another, 
even  though  unknown  a  little  while  before. 

Throughout  France  one  met  this  phase  of 
friendship  among  all  sorts  of  people,  noble  and 
simple,  in  Paris  and  in  the  provinces  alike.  And 
the  fact  that  it  was  genuine  was  constantly 
brought  home  to  you  by  the  confidence  with 
which  friends  who  displayed  eager  interest  in 
your  family  affairs  assumed,  as  a  matter  of  course, 
that  you  would  take  equally  eager  interest  in 


THE   FAMILY  103 

theirs.  Two  or  three  instances  of  what  I  have 
in  mind  may  make  it  more  clear.  On  one  occa- 
sion, I  remember,  a  friend  to  whom  we  had 
brought  a  letter  of  introduction  asked  us  to  dine 
informally.  At  dinner  we  met  his  father,  who 
headed  the  table.  Somehow,  we  came  to  know 
before  long  that  the  mother  had  died  a  few  years 
ago  and  that  the  father  had  been  welcomed  to 
the  house  of  the  son,  who  gave  him  precedence 
as  matter  of  course.  It  transpired  also  that  the 
robust  elderly  gentleman  had  other  children.  He 
was  justly  proud  of  heading  a  family  which 
should  put  dread  of  race-suicide  to  sleep.  And 
after  dinner,  son  after  son  came  in  to  see  us,  each 
with  his  wife,  until  I  think  we  had  the  bewilder- 
ing pleasure  of  meeting  six  couples  in  all,  merged 
in  one  confidently  friendly  family  group.  What 
made  this  greeting  so  memorable  was  its  com- 
plete spontaneity.  There  was  not  an  instant's 
question  in  anybody's  mind  that  familiar  access 
to  anyone  of  this  little  company  implied  access 
—  cordially  welcome  on  both  sides  —  to  all  of 
them.  Again,  on  more  than  one  occasion  and 
in  widely  different  surroundings,  I  found  myself, 
when  welcomed  to  a  family  table,  not  exactly 
told,  but  almost  assumed  to  know,  that  the  fam- 
ily circle  was  no  longer  complete.  Children 
dead  years  ago  were  still  so  living  in  the  hearts 


104       THE  FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

of  their  parents  that  the  memory  of  them  cast 
a  shade  of  melancholy  over  the  welcome  of 
any  new  friend,  recalling  what  it  might  have 
been  if  all  the  family  had  been  spared  to  join 
in  it. 

A  still  more  touching  incident  comes  to  mind. 
During  our  stay  in  Paris  a  very  old  lady  died, 
the  mother  of  a  friend  who  had  received  us 
kindly.  Though  we  had  never  had  the  privilege 
of  knowing  her,  who  had  been,  I  believe,  long 
invalid,  a  formal  invitation  to  the  funeral  came 
tons.  And  when  the  ceremony  at  the  church 
was  finished  we  found  that  French  custom  ex- 
pected us  to  pass,  with  the  other  mourners,  before 
the  assembled  family,  and  to  express  our  sym- 
pathy. The  manner  in  which  this  assurance  of 
condolence  was  received  made  the  sad  ceremony 
seem  more  than  formal.  The  only  one  of  the 
bereaved  family  whom  we  had  known  we  had 
not  known  very  well.  Yet  their  very  invitation 
implied  a  frank  assurance  that  we  should  care  to 
know  of  the  bereavement.  The  passing  word,  and 
pressure  of  the  hand,  meant  that  this  human  shar- 
ing in  such  a  grief  as  time  must  bring  to  us  all 
had  changed  what  might  have  been  a  passing 
acquaintance  into  a  relation  which,  however  little 
we  might  see  of  one  another  in  this  transitory 
world,  should  always  have  in  memory  the  tender 


THE   FAMILY  105 

sanction  of  a  momentary  communion    of  the 
spirit. 

The  unity  of  a  family  in  France,  indeed,  is 
implied  in  a  phase  of  it  familiar  even  to  travel- 
lers. Among  small  shopkeepers,  and  the  like, 
wherever  you  go,  you  will  find  the  business  in 
personal  charge  not  only  of  the  head  of  the 
establishment  but  of  his  wife  and  of  his  grown 
children  as  well.  A  little  adventure  which  befell 
an  American  traveller  not  long  ago  will  illustrate 
what  I  mean.  Just  as  he  was  about  to  leave  a 
town  where  he  had  passed  the  night,  on  a  jour- 
ney, he  had  the  misfortune  to  tear  his  only 
available  trousers.  It  was  necessary  to  repair 
the  damage  at  once ;  so  he  presently  found  him- 
self, early  in  the  morning  and  with  little  time  to 
spare,  in  the  apartment  of  a  small  tailor,  who 
lived  in  two  ground-floor  rooms  looking  out  on 
a  delightful  eighteenth  century  courtyard.  The 
tailor  fell  to  work  at  once.  His  stout,  bustling 
wife,  with  a  preposterously  black  false  front  of 
hair,  cheerily  stopped  feeding  a  cage  full  of  twit- 
tering birds  and  began  to  heat  the  irons  which 
would  soon  be  required  to  complete  her  hus- 
band's job.  Meanwhile  she  was  full  of  eager 
chatter :  Where  did  Monsieur  come  from  ? 
America?  Then  of  course  he  spoke  Spanish. 
Monsieur  was  compelled  to  regret  that  he  came 


106       THE   FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

from  an  obscure  comer  of  the  American  conti- 
nent where  a  knowledge  of  Spanish  is  not  yet 
prevalent.  Ah,  she  said,  that  was  a  very  great 
pity.  She  could  speak  Spanish  herself.  She 
had  visited  Gibraltar.  So  had  Monsieur,  it 
appeared,  a  few  years  ago.  The  good  woman 
looked  up  eagerly:  Had  Monsieur  descended  at 
the  Hotel  de  TUnivers  ?  This  innocent  question 
bred  all  the  trouble  to  come.  The  traveller, 
whose  visit  to  Gibraltar  was  at  least  ten  years 
past,  had  quite  forgotten  the  name  of  his  hotel 
there.  One  name  would  do  as  well  as  another. 
Evidently  his  affable  questioner  expected  an 
affirmative  answer.  So  he  politely  replied.  Of 
course ;  who  would  go  elsewhere  ?  The  stout 
woman  beamed  like  the  sun.  **  C'est  mon  oncle 
qui  le  tient,"  she  said :  "  My  uncle  keeps  it." 
Monsieur  was  delighted.  "Does  he  still  wear 
black  whiskers?"  she  asked  eagerly.  Monsieur 
was  in  for  it  now,  and  confidently  announced 
"Enormes"  —  huge  ones.  Whereupon  she  in- 
terrupted her  husband's  work  with  a  cry  that 
this  visitor  was  an  intimate  fi:'iend  of  their  dear 
uncle ;  and  the  conversation  proceeded  with  ani- 
mated cordiality  of  interrogation,  which  put 
Monsieur's  powers  of  invention  to  the  test,  until 
the  repaired  trousers  were  ready. 

Then   came    the    crowning    moment.      How 


THE   FAMILY  107 

much  did  he  owe  the  tailor,  he  asked,  for  his 
kind  services,  out  of  hours.  What  the  tailor 
might  have  answered  he  never  knew.  The 
bustling,  voluble  wife,  who  was  then  exhibit- 
ing to  him  the  accomplishments  of  her  caged 
birds,  inten'upted  :  Owe  ?  He  owed  nothing. 
Was  not  Monsieur  the  intimate  friend  of  her 
uncle?  Was  he  not  "ami  de  la  famille"?  It 
was  a  point  of  honor  that  the  question  of  money 
should  not  arise  between  family  friends.  No  — 
she  could  not  hear  of  such  a  thing ;  neither  could 
her  husband.  And  the  poor  husband,  who  had 
worked  hard  for  half  an  hour,  said  nothing  in 
denial.  And  Monsieur  had  a  train  to  catch ; 
and  furthermore  he  had  fallen  into  much  con- 
trite confusion  of  mind,  which  seriously  impaired 
his  command  of  French.  He  saw  no  way  to 
explain  his  innocent  deceit.  To  his  deep  dis- 
may he  found  himself  paying  for  his  trousers 
with  cordial  thanks,  tremendous  pressures  of 
hands,  and  deep  protestations  of  what  delight 
he  should  take  when  he  next  visited  Gibraltar 
in  informing  the  black-whiskered  uncle  of  the 
wonderful  chance  which  had  brought  him  the 
pleasure  of  acquaintance  with  other  members 
of  so  agreeable  and  honorable  a  family.  The 
proceeding  was  not  to  his  credit;  but  neither 
was  it  characteristic.      Before  and  since  he  has 


108       THE   FRANCE   OF   TODAY 

maintained  the  principles  and  the  reputation  of 
an  honest  man.  He  told  the  story,  indeed,  with 
didactically  honest  intent.  It  went  to  prove,  he 
declared,  how  scrupulously  we  should  consider 
the  truth  even  on  what  might  seem  to  be  the 
most  trivial  occasions. 

On  the  other  hand,  this  somewhat  unseemly 
incident  was  deeply  characteristic  of  the  good 
people  who  so  pleasantly  deceived  themselves 
and  betrayed  a  well-meaning  American  into  the 
technically  criminal  act  of  obtaining  valuable 
services  on  false  pretences.  It  illustrated,  in 
more  ways  than  one,  the  intensity  of  family  feel- 
ing prevalent  among  all  classes  of  the  French. 
So  intense  was  the  feeling  in  this  case  that,  for 
one  thing,  it  completely  overcame  the  frugal  and 
thrifty  impulses  which  form  so  considerable  a 
feature  in  the  character  of  small  tradesmen  any- 
where, and  particularly  in  France.  Further- 
more, 'it  implied  how  completely  a  French 
family,  once  constituted,  regards  itself  as  a  unit. 
The  imaginary  innkeeper,  with  huge  black 
whiskers,  was  uncle  not  to  the  busy  little  tailor 
who  had  been  industriously  plying  his  needle,  but 
to  his  wife,  who  had  only  been  heating  an  iron 
or  two,  and  feeding  canary-birds.  No  matter; 
the  uncle  of  one  was  uncle  of  both.  It  was  a 
family  affair,  as  the  rather  meek  husband  seemed 


THE   FAMILY  109 

perfectly  to  agree.  In  the  third  place,  inasmuch 
as  this  incident  occurred  not  in  a  shop  or  in  a 
public  place,  but  in  the  little  room  where  the 
happy  pair  actually  lived,  it  revealed  what  is 
often  true  of  French  households  —  that,^  within 
doors,  the  wife  is  in  supreme  command,  if  she 
Jiave  the  vigor  and  the  will  to  be.  It  left  to 
be  explained,  accordingly,  that  if  the  question 
had  involved  the  control  of  property,  or  any- 
thing else  in  which  the  affairs  of  the  family 
had  presented  themselves  not  within  doors  but 
to  the  outside  world,  the  husband  would  have 
been  expected,  at  least  in  form,  to  take  the 
principal  part. 

Some  such  relations  as  were  thus  trivially  in- 
dicated are  those  which  appeal  most  instantly  to 
the  instinctive  sentiment  of  the  French.  This 
impulse  is  so  deeply,  so  characteristically  na- 
tional that  you  will  find  it  in  all  ranks  of  life. 
It  is  at  its  strongest,  probably,  among  the  bour- 
geoisie, — the  middle  class,  the  core  of  the  nation. 
It  exists,  however,  everywhere ;  and,  when  one 
stops  to  consider  the  circumstances,  it  proves  to 
be  based  on  a  deep  recognition  of  natural  law. 

Whatever  else  we  may  be,  one  thing  is  true  of 
every  human  being.  As  a  matter  of  necessity 
we  all  have  parents.  Without  them  we  could 
not  exist.     This  obvious  condition  of  our  Uves 


110       THE  FRANCE  OF  TODAY 

involves  the  probability  of  inevitable  relation- 
ship with  a  good  many  other  people  who  have 
come  into  the  world  by  channels  analogous  to 
those  which  gave  birth  to  ourselves.      Most  of 
us,   of  necessity  and  not  of  choice,  find  our- 
selves blessed  with   brothers,   sisters,  nephews, 
nieces,   uncles,   aunts,   and   cousins,   as  well   as 
with  ancestors  and  descendants.     Though  human 
recognition  of  this  fact  is  everywhere   cordial, 
there  seems  a  marked  difference  between  the 
cordiality  with  which  it  is  recognized  in  France 
and  that  prevalent  in  many  other  countries.    Else- 
where this  cordiality  often  seems  rather  conven- 
tional.    In  France  it  seems  the  most  spontane- 
ous of  all  impulses.     And  when  you  stop  to 
think  you  can  hardly  fail  to  agree  that  this  state 
of  feeling  is  deeply  reasonable.     The  ties  it  con- 
secrates are  evidently  those  of  nature  as  distin- 
guished from  those  of  choice.     We  cannot  help 
being  the  children  of  our  parents ;  our  children 
cannot  help  springing  from  us ;  common  blood 
cannot  be  denied  by  any  process  of  disinheritance 
or  of  adoption.     On  the  other  hand  some  of  the 
closest  actual  human  relations  in  the  world  are 
matters  not  of  necessity  but  of  choice.    Nobody, 
however  devoted,  is  compelled  by  any  inexorable 
law  of  nature  to  be  the  husband  or  the  wife  of 
anybody  else.     Comparatively  accidental  though 


THE   FAMILY  111 

marital  relation  may  be,  the  while,  there  can  be 
no  doubt  that  the  conventional  ideals  of  America 
have  always  assumed,  as  a  matter  of  course,  that 
it  ought  to  be  the  object  of  prime  human  affec- 
tion.   Among  the  French,  on  the  other  hand, 
though  conjugal  union  seems  generally  full  of 
cordial  feeling,  the  intensity  of  prime  affection 
seems  more  instinctively  consecrated  to  the  una- 
voidable human  relation  of  parents  and  children. 
How  far  this  emotional  peculiarity  is  the  cause, 
or  how  far  it  is  the  effect  of  the  manner  in  which 
the  French  regard  the  organization,  the  struc- 
ture, of  the  family,  it  is  hard  to  say.    One  thing 
is  sure  :  the  state  of  feeling  could  not  persist  in  a 
society  where  the  family  was  not  assumed  to  be 
the  prime  social  fact ;  nor  yet  could  the  family 
present  itself  as  the  prime  social  fact  in  a  society 
which  was  not  deeply  animated   by  this  state 
of  feeling.     To  the   French  mind,  accordingly, 
the  family,  as  a  fact  and  as  a   conception,  is 
more  constantly  present  than  to  ours.     Now  a 
family  evidently  consists,  in  the  first  place,  of 
a  husband   and  a  wife,  associated  for  the  pur- 
pose of  founding,  if  so  may  be,  a  new  human 
strain.     It  is  not  complete  until  children  are 
born  to  them.     When  these  children  in  turn 
take  mates  to  themselves,  the  family  increases 
in  potential  dignity  and  strength.      It  began. 


112       THE  FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

in  some  degree,  as  a  venture,  an  experiment; 
it  has  proved  itself  an  organism,  an  institution; 
it  is  capable  of  reproducing  itself,  and  its  like, 
indefinitely ;  for  each  branch  of  it  may  in  turn 
become  a  new  parent  stem.  |  Yet  so  long  as 
the  original  founders  of  any  family  line  sur- 
vive, they  remain,  in  the  estimate  of  its  mem- 
bers, what  they  are  in  the  course  of  nature  — 
the  fundamental  fact  without  which  the  organism 
could  never  have  come  into  being.  ^  The  father 
is  in  general  control  both  of  the  family  property 
and  of  the  relations  of  the  family  with  other 
families  and  with  the  whole  outer  world.  The 
mother,  though  formally  in  due  subservience  to 
her  lord  and  master,  is  virtually  absolute  in  her 
domestic  authority.  Their  joint  sovereignty  is 
one  where  foreign  affairs  are  intrusted  to  the 
man,  and  where  the  ministry  of  the  interior 
is  the  prerogative  of  the  woman.  And  if  by 
chance  a  parent  of  either  happen  to  survive, 
this  venerable  personage,  sovereign  by  the  law 
of  nature  over  one  or  the  other  of  these  lesser 
sovereigns,  is  apt  to  play  the  part  of  an  en- 
lightezied  despot  in  supervising  the  wholelittle 
govemmenf  in  question. 

An  amiable  instance  of  this  state  of  aifairs 
happened  to  come  to  my  notice.  The  daughter 
of  an  old  lady,  herself  sprung  from  the  country- 


THE   FAMILY  113 

gentry  —  the  petite  noblesse  —  of  a  mid-French 
province,  had  married,  a  good  many  years  ago, 
a  highly  respectable  man  of  business.  Their 
affairs  had  not  prospered.  By  the  time  when  I 
happened  to  know  something  of  them,  they  had 
been  reduced  to  an  inconveniently  small  way  of 
living ;  their  daughters,  of  twenty-five  or  thirty, 
had  to  occupy  themselves  as  teachers,  and  the 
noble  grandmother  had  been  compelled  by  stress 
of  circumstances  to  become  a  member  of  the 
rather  frugal  bourgeois  household.  There,  as  a 
matter  of  course,  her  supremacy  was  admitted 
by  all  her  descendants  as  well  as  by  that  acci- 
dental if  inevitable  incident  in  the  line  of  their 
descent,  her  son-in-law.  The  traditions  of  her 
youth,  and  of  the  station  which  she  had  then 
occupied,  had  been  severe  in  the  matter  of  con- 
trol over  the  daily  life  of  young  girls.  Two 
phases  of  this  discipUne  impressed  her  as  partic- 
ularly important :  a  young  woman  of  respecta- 
bility should  never  go  out  of  the  house  alone, 
and  she  should  never  receive  or  write  a  letter, 
even  to  or  from  her  own  brothers  and  sisters, 
without  submitting  it  to  the  head  of  the  family. 
The  good  old  lady,  being  a  person  of  intelli- 
gence, felt  herself  bound  to  admit  the  unanswer- 
able logic  of  circumstance.  As  it  was  obviously 
out   of  the  question  that  her  granddaughters 


114       THE   FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

should  be  provided  with  maids,  she  reluctantly 
consented  that  they  should  be  allowed  to  go 
out  alone  to  give  their  lessons.  In  the  mat- 
ter of  their  correspondence  she  remained  rigid. 
Every  letter  addressed  to  either  of  them,  even 
by  each  other,  she  conscientiously  expected  to  be 
opened  and  read  by  their  mother.  Every  letter 
which  either  of  them  wrote  she  expected  their 
mother  to  read,  from  beginning  to  end,  before  it 
should  be  allowed  to  leave  the  house.  What  is 
more,  the  pious  frauds  by  which  her  mandates 
were  sometimes  evaded  never  seemed  to  attract 
her  attention.  She  fervently  believed  that  she 
was  controlling  her  grandchildren,  at  thirty,  in 
the  manner  in  which  girls  of  gentle  family  had 
always  been  controlled.  She  ignored  the  slightly 
protesting  attitude  of  her  bourgeois  son-in-law. 
And,  so  far  as  I  could  understand,  her  grand- 
daughters, though  by  no  means  disposed  to  sub- 
mit their  correspondence  to  scrutiny,  however 
affectionate,  would  have  thought  themselves 
somewhat  rudely  radical  if  they  had  been  so  pre- 
sumptuous as  to  criticise  her  principles.  Pleasantly 
extreme  as  this  little  instance  of  domestic  hier- 
archy may  seem,  it  is  really  characteristic  of 
French  family  feeling,  and  by  no  means  unique. 
This  conception  of  the  family  as  the  prime 
social  fact,  and  as  the  fact  which  must  naturally 


THE   FAMILY  115 

appeal  most  directly  to  human  emotion,  underlies 
certain  phases  of  actual  French  law  often  mis- 
understood by  foreigners.  Having  no  technical 
knowledge  of  law,  to  be  sure,  and  having  made 
no  special  study  of  the  details  in  question,  I 
cannot  pretend  to  authoritative  accuracy  in  this 
matter.  I  am  sure,  however,  that  several  talks 
with  French  barristers  of  my  acquaintance  deeply 
modified  my  opinions  concerning  a  phase  of 
French  conduct  which  has  often  impressed 
Americans  unfavorably.  In  general,  we  have 
come  to  understand,  when  a  Frenchman  desires 
to  marry  one  of  our  compatriots,  he  displays 
eager  interest  not  only  in  her  person  but  also 
in  her  worldly  possessions ;  frequently,  indeed, 
proceeding  with  the  delicate  negotiations  in  ques- 
tion only  on  the  specific  understanding  that  she 
shall  have  a  fixed  dowry,  to  be  paid  down  on 
the  occasion  of  the  marriage  which,  if  all  go  well, 
shall  crown  his  wishes.  We  have  furthermore 
come  to  understand  that  a  dowry  paid  down 
under  such  circumstances  regularly  passes  into 
the  complete  control  of  the  happy  husband  ;  that 
the  wife,  from  whom  the  property  is  really  de- 
rived, has  no  voice  whatever  in  the  management 
of  it.  We  have  accordingly  been  disposed  to 
imagine  that  a  Frenchman  in  search  of  a  wife 
has  the  unromantic  and  sordid  habit  of  offering 


116       THE  FRANCE  OF  TODAY 

himself  for  sale  to  the  highest  bidder — an  obvi- 
ous caricature  of  the  truth,  but  not  quite  unwar- 
ranted by  the  facts  as  they  present  themselves  to 
foreign  ignorance. 

For  our  foreign  ignorance  assumes  that  the 
Frenchman  who  candidly  requests  a  dowry,  to 
be  placed  under  his  complete  control,  desires  the 
same  for  his  own  personal  use  and  advantage. 
In  point  of  fact,  he  regards  it  in  a  totally  diiFer- 
ent  light.  By  the  act  of  marriage  he  is  about 
to  essay  the  founding  of  a  family.  If  the  fam- 
ily come  into  existence,  the  maintenance  and 
strengthening  of  its  position  will  demand  means 
which  shall  correspond  with  its  social  duties, 
pretensions,  and  aspirations.  Such  means  are 
apt  not  to  be  at  his  unaided  disposal.  He  is 
cordially  prepared  to  provide  as  much  of  them 
as  he  can.  To  secure  the  interests  of  his  pro- 
spective family,  however,  he  needs  to  have  his 
own  provision  —  much  of  which  will  probably 
come  from  his  own  family  —  supplemented  by 
adequate  provision  from  the  resources  controlled 
by  the  family  of  his  beloved.  The  dowry,  to 
be  sure,  must  be  paid  into  his  hands ;  for  he  is 
about  to  assume,  in  his  turn,  the  dignity  of  the 
head  of  a  family,  one  of  whose  principal  duties 
is  to  manage  its  property  and  in  all  respects  to 
direct  its  material  prosperity  and  its  relations 


THE  FAMILY  117 

with  that  considerable  part  of  the  world  which 
must  always  remain  external  to  itself.  Though 
in  free  command  of  the  family  property,  however, 
he  does  not  look  upon  it  as  a  personal  possession 

—  any  more  than  a  sovereign  would  look  on  the 
gross  revenue  of  a  constitutional  nation  as  the 
annual  due  of  his  privy  purse.  Morally  a  family 
property,  based  on  the  portion  brought  by  the 
husband  and  the  dowry  paid  by  the  family  of 
the  wife,  is  felt  to  be  a  virtual  trust,  for  the  ulti- 
mate benefit  of  the  children  who  may  be  born 
to  them. 

y^'To  some  extent,  if  I  did  not  misunderstand 
my  legal  friends,  this  moral  view  of  the  situation 
is  not  only  sanctioned  but  actually  compelled  by 
law.  The  right  of  disposal  of  property  by  will, 
so  little  restricted  in  America  that  every  day 
Americans  are  accustomed  to  assume  it  virtually 
absolute  by  the  law  of  natiu-e  and  of  nations,  is 
rigidly  limited  throughout  France.  If  parents 
have  children,  those  children  have  an  indefeasible 
right  of  inheritance  in  all  but  a  limited  portion 

—  by  way  of  illustrative  hypothesis,  let  us  say 
in  all  but  one-tenth  —  of  the  property  which  the 
parents  possess.  If  a  bachelor  die,  his  parents, 
his  brothers  and  sisters,  his  uncles,  aunts,  and 
cousins,  as  the  case  may  be, — whoever,  in  short, 
chance  to  be  his  nearest  kin, — have  not  mere 


118       THE   FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

residuary  rights,  but  a  positive  claim  to  a  con- 
siderable portion  of  his  property,  varying  in  pro- 
portion to  the  degree  of  kinship  which  may 
happen  to  exist  between  the  decedent  and  his 
legal  heirs.  Absolute  freedom  of  bequest  is  pos- 
sible in  France  only  in  those  rare  cases  where  a 
human  being,  who  owns  property,  finds  himself 
without  kin  —  in  a  position  where,  by  English 
law,  the  property  of  an  intestate  would  escheat 
to  the  crown.  This  narrow  limitation  of  testa- 
mentary power,  which  the  French  assume  as  a 
matter  of  course,  is  evidently  based  on  the  con- 
ception that  property,  as  such,  really  belongs  not 
to  the  individual,  who  must  surely  die,  but  to 
the  family,  which  by  good  fortune  may  indefinitely 
persist. 

The  rights  in  a  dowry,  according  to  this  sys- 
tem, become,  fi-om  our  American  point  of  view, 
unexpectedly  instructive.     If  a  marriage  result 
f  in  children^  the  dowry  of  the  mother  evidently 
I  becomes  a  part  of  their  prospective  inheritance. 
So  long  as  the  father  lives,  no  doubt,  it  is  wholly 
in  his  possession.     He  is  not  expected  to  manage 
/  it  quite  as  a  trustee,  bound  to  submit  detailed 
/   accounts.     He  is  assumed  to  have  the  interest 
of  his  family  so  deeply  at  heart  that  he  will  fi-eely 
use  their  property,  to  the  best  of  his  power,  for 
their  common  advantage.     If  he  do  so  skilfully, 


THE   FAMILY  119 

it  will  increase  more  than  if  his  management  of 
it  were  hampered  by  such  legal  conditions  as  are 
needful  in  the  case  of  trusts.  On  his  death,  his 
children  come  into  their  possessions,  except  so  far 
as  their  widowed  mother  may  have  a  life  inter- 
est in  the  same.  In  case,  however,  a  marriage 
prove  childless,  the  fate  of  the  dowry  is  quite 
different.  If  a  wife  die  without  living  issue,  her 
dowry  reverts,  as  a  matter  of  course,  to  her  own 
family,  from  which  it  originally  came.  Her  hus- 
band, who  had  complete  control  of  it  during  her 
married  life,  retains  in  widowhood  no  rights  in  it 
whatever.  She  cannot  even  convey  rights  to 
him  by  will,  I  understand,  unless  such  power  has 
been  originally  and  specifically  given  to  her,  so 
far  as  it  legally  may  be,  by  the  terms  of  her 
marriage  contract.  The  dowry  originally  came 
from  her  family,  as  their  contribution  to  the 
future  of  the  family  which  they  hoped  might 
spring  from  her  marriage.  Their  hopes  have 
been  disappointed ;  the  consecration  of  property 
to  such  hopes  has  proved  futile ;  the  property  in 
question  must  evidently  revert  to  the  family  to 
which  it  originally  belonged.  Their  rights  assert 
themselves  automatically. 

For  a  la)rman  to  attempt  exposition  of  law  is 
doubtless  presumptuous ;  and  I  do  not  pretend 
this  statement  to  be  authoritative.     Of  one  thing, 


120       THE  FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

the  while,  I  am  confident.  It  does  not  misrep- 
resent the  spirit  in  which  French  law  and  French 
sentiment  regard  the  interests  of  a  family  as  far 
superior  to  any  interests  which  concern  only  an 
individual.  When  we  begin  to  understand  this 
spirit,  and  only  then,  we  can  begin  to  see  how 
the  requests  for  dowry,  so  deeply  unwelcome 
to  American  sentiment  when  international  mar- 
riages take  place,  do  not  really  imply  grasping 
and  cynical  selfishness,  on  the  part  of  the  French, 
but  are  rather  an  evidence  of  their  affectionate 
prudence. 

For  that  French  temper  regards  the  family 
with  true  and  deep  affection  is  beyond  ques- 
tion. This  sentiment  of  unreserved,  self- 
sacrificing  love  for  one's  kin  is  that  on 
which  you  may  most  surely  count  in  France, 
throughout  all  phases  of  society.  One  is 
tempted  to  say  that  of  all  the  human  rela- 
tions in  the  world  none  is  more  deeply,  more 
sincerely,  more  beautifully  constant  and  ten- 
der than  the  love  which  persists  between  par- 
ents and  children  from  end  to  end  of  France. 
An  evidence  of  this  anyone  may  find  in  the 
word  which  I  think  makes  instant  appeal  to 
a  marvellously  profound  and  enduring  phase 
of  French  emotion  everyw^here  consecrated  by 
persistent  purity  of  heart.     At  least  in  Amer- 


THE   FAMILY  121 

ica,  we  have  a  perversely  mistaken  impres- 
sion of  French  Ufe,  which  finds  expression  in 
the  famiUar  commonplace  that  the  language 
of  France  contains  no  equivalent  for  our  ten- 
derly cherished  word  home.  Strictly,  literally 
speaking,  this  commonplace  may  be  defensible. 
There  is  no  single  French  word  completely  har- 
monious at  once  with  our  formal  phrase  "at 
home "  and  with  the  lyric  refrain,  "  There  is  no 
place  like  home,"  which  has  made  the  other- 
wise insignificant  name  of  John  Howard  Payne 
sentimentally  immortal.  English,  on  the  other 
hand,  has  no  single  word  to  express  the  various 
shades  of  meaning  comprised  in  the  French  word 
chez;  nor  yet  those  implied  in  the  idiom  a  la 
maison,  which  means  something  different  from 
"  in  the  house."  And  English  has  another  lack, 
generally  ignored  by  English-speaking  people. 
Much  as  they  have  cherished  the  manifold  and 
gentle  sentiments  which  cluster  in  their  affec- 
tions about  the  word  home,  the  generations  who 
have  traced  their  way  from  cradle  to  grave  in 
English  terms  have  never  found  themselves  in 
need  of  a  word  which  should  comprise  all  the 
affectionate  tenderness  of  meaning  gathered 
together  in  the  French  v^orA  foyer. 

By  a  paradoxical   chance,  this  word  conveys 
to  travellers  a  completely  erroneous  suggestion. 


122       THE   FRANCE  OF  TODAY 

As  everybody  knows,  it  is  applied  to  those  bril- 
liant antechambers  of  the  not  too  commodious 
theatres  of  France,  where  you  go  to  relax  your 
joints  and  to  breathe  comparatively  fresh  air  be- 
tween the  acts,  and  where  you  meet  a  company 
which,  whatever  its  merits,  seems  hardly  inspired 
by  sentiments  of  domesticity.  To  foreign 
minds,  accordingly,  the  word  foyer  probably 
suggests,  first  and  only,  the  painted  nymphs 
who  adorn  the  ceilings  of  the  Opera,  or  the 
inscrutable  smile  of  Houdon's  Voltaire,  together 
with  mirrors,  toilettes,  and  such  human  beings 
as  take  delight  in  the  wearing  of  the  latter 
and  the  contemplation  of  the  former;  while, 
hardly  in  the  background,  lurks  that  range  of 
thought  and  emotion  perennially  excited  by  the 
conventions  of  operatic  Ubretti,  ballets,  and  the 
widely  ranging  stage  of  France.  To  the  French 
mind,  the  word  foyer  no  more  implies  these  con- 
ceptions as  primary  than  the  word  home  im- 
pUes,  among  decent  Americans,  a  tidy  house, 
to  be  bought  or  hired  on  terms  which  should 
attract  people  of  limited  means  in  search  of  an 
abiding-place.  The  prime,  original  meaning  of 
the  y^ord  foyer  remains  the  true  meaning  of  it 
throughout  France,  —  or  at  least  the  true  and 
enduring  origin  of  the  sentiments  now  so  richly 
clustered    about   it.      It   is   the    chimney,   the 


THE   FAMILY  123 

hearthstone,  —  the  core  of  domestic  life,  where 
the  family  gathers,  complete  in  itself,  distinct 
from  any  other  group  in  this  confused  and  bus- 
tling world,  at  one  with  each  other,  free  for  the 
while  from  all  the  rest  of  humanity. 

The  Uteral  meaning  of  the  word,  no  doubt, 
has  long  ago  lapsed  from  the  consciousness  of 
those  to  whom  the  word  appeals  beyond  all 
words  else.  The  term  foyer  arouses  no  romantic 
image  of  flickering  bonfires  in  huts  or  halls,  of 
smoky  rafters  and  chimneys,  of  uncouth  or  an- 
tique figures,  gentle  and  simple,  warming  their 
transparent  hands  over  the  glowing  embers,  and 
telling  tales  of  things  that  were,  —  heroes,  saints, 
adventures,  jests,  ancestors  and  enemies,  conquests 
and  defeats,  loves  and  deaths,  famines  and  crops 
and  herds ;  and  yet  such  depths  of  emotion 
as  the  French  find  in  the  word  even  to  this 
day  could  hardly  have  emerged  from  a  human 
antiquity  less  immemorial  than  that  wherein 
such  fantasies  as  these  hover,  from  eldest  time. 
To  the  French  still,  the  foyer  is  the  region 
where  the  family  is  all  in  all.  It  implies,  ac- 
cordingly, all  the  full,  deep,  complex  strength  of 
family  affection,  which  is  to  them  the  deepest 
of  national  and  personal  emotions.  These  emo- 
tions are  most  potent,  most  conscious,  I  suppose, 
among  the  bourgeoisie;  they  seem  to  be  least 


124       THE   FRANCE  OF   TODAY 

strong  in  the  regions  which  we  have  called  the 
world  of  fine  art ;  in  the  complicated  traditions 
of  aristocracy  they  sometimes  take  unexpectedly 
cynical  form.  But  they  persist,  with  perennial 
vigor,  everywhere.  And  when  you  begin  to 
enter  into  them,  when  you  begin  sympathet- 
ically to  feel  something  of  what  they  signify  in 
the  lives  of  friends  who  generously  welcome  you 
to  their  foyers^  your  mind  harks  back  to  school 
days.  You  find  yourself  dreaming  not  of  the 
homes  so  dear  to  England  and  to  America,  but 
rather  of  the  hearthstones  you  used  to  read 
about  in  childhood;  you  begin  to  have  a  new 
and  a  reverent  sense  of  what  the  Lares  and  the 
Penates  signified  who  lingered  in  the  devout 
imagination  of  ancestral  Rome. 

The  French,  we  have  been  accustomed  to 
fancy,  do  not  know  what  we  mean  by  home. 
Well  and  good,  they  may  answer;  those  who 
speak  only  English  have  no  conception  of  what 
the  French  mean  hj  foyer.  In  tenderness  of 
sentiment,  in  instant  appeal  to  emotions  of  en- 
during purity,  one  word  is  as  beautiful  as  the 
other.  In  cherished  sacredness  of  significance, 
one  sometimes  comes  to  fancy,  the  full  mean- 
ing of  the  term  foyer^  is  richer  than  that  of  any 
single  word  in  our  own  language.  And  yet, 
the  better  you  come  to  know  it,  the  more  certain 


THE   FAMILY  125 

you  grow  that,  despite  all  the  analogies  of  its  mean- 
ing to  those  of  our  word  home,  it  does  not  convey 
quite  the  same  implications.  Which  conception 
may  be  held  ideally  preferable,  we  need  not  dis- 
pute. The  question  would  turn  on  abstractions 
and  prejudices,  like  disputes  about  the  loveliness 
of  flowers  or  of  melodies.  Pleasant  though  it  be, 
there  is  no  more  inconclusive  task  than  that  of 
those  who  give  themselves  up  to  reasoning  about 
love.  There  are  shades  of  difference  ;  for  the 
wise  it  is  enough  that  we  recognize  them,  leaving 
the  judgment  among  perfections  to  intelligence 
higher  than  that  which  obscures  the  mental 
processes  of  this  world.  Such  shades  of  differ- 
ence as  distinguish  the  French  foyer  from  the 
English  home  spring  from  the  different  moods 
in  which  the  temper  of  France  and  that  of  Eng- 
land are  apt  to  regard  the  comparative  importance 
of  the  family  and  of  the  individual. 

To  the  French  mind,  as  we  have  seen,  the 
family  is  the  prime  social  fact.  As  a  matter  of 
tradition  and  of  system,  —  and  tradition  and  sys- 
tem are  instinctively  welcome  to  the  French,  — 
society  appears  to  them  as  a  great  group  of 
families  ;  and  though  each  family  must  evidently 
consist  of  the  individuals  which  compose  it,  the 
relations  of  the  family  to  other  families  and  to 
the  whole  outer  world  seem  far  more  important 


126       THE   FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

than  the  internal  relations,  within  the  family,  of 
the  individuals  whom  it  includes.  The  social^ 
unit,  in  brief,  is  not  the  individual  but  the 
family  group.  To  maintain  itself,  accordingly, 
this  group  must  have  a  recognized  organization 
of  its  own,  to  which  all  its  members  must 
submit.  In  point  of  fact,  so  far  as  my  observa- 
tion went,  they  generally  do  so,  cordially  and 
willingly.  In  the  very  act  of  so  doing,  the 
while,  they  sacrifice,  perhaps  without  the  least 
sense  that  they  do  so,  something  deeply  con- 
genial to  the  domestic  taste  of  England  and  of 
America  —  secure  possession  of  personal  privacy. 
The  foyer  itself  is  not  a  region  where  you  may 
permit  yourself  to  be  quite  informally  at  ease,  to 
behave  as  your  whims  might  suggest.  It  is  an 
intensely  private  little  social  organism.  So  far 
as  the  rest  of  the  world  goes,  it  is  absolutely  in- 
dependent. But  within  itself  it  has  its  own  laws 
of  conduct,  its  own  code  of  pleasant  social  forms 
and  duties,  —  something  which  for  want  of  a  less 
formal  term  I  may  perhaps  call  its  etiquette,  — 
no  matter  in  what  social  rank  you  may  chance 
to  observe  it. 

In  general,  I  think,  French  family  life  —  the 
daily  existence  of  the  foyer  —  is  full  of  real 
charm.  It  is  genuinely,  eagerly  friendly  in  its 
pervasively  affectionate  feeling;  it  is  pleasantly 


THE   FAMILY  127 

animated  in  its  cheerfully  persistent  conversation ; 
it  is  full  of  kindness,  of  gayety,  of  social  grace 
which  you  might  well  have  fancied  inconsistent 
with  the  inevitable  recurrences  of  domesticity. 
It  is  delightfully  agreeable,  not  only  to  a  visitor, 
who  has  some  passing  gUmpse  of  it,  but  still  more 
to  its  members,  who  find  its  charm  strengthened 
by  all  the  welcome  ease  and  force  of  lifeJong  habit. 
But  it  never  suffers  its  own  organization  to  be 
forgotten.  Every  member  of  a  family  has,  as 
such,  his  duties  and  his  dues.  The  love  of  French 
parents  for  their  children,  and  of  French  children 
for  their  parents,  is  beyond  dispute.  It  is  so 
fervent,  indeed,  that  only  fear  lest  one  might 
seem  invidious  prevents  one  from  asserting  it 
stronger,  deeper,  more  instant  than  such  love 
anywhere  else.  But  even  in  its  most  closely 
intimate  aspect  it  never  forgets  that  the  parent 
is  the  parent  and  the  child  the  child.  The  fact 
of  authority  implies  the  right  to  formal  respect 
as  well  as  to  obedience.  The  fact  that  you 
belong  to  an  organized  social  group,  the  while, 
implies  your  duty,  whatever  your  station  therein, 
to  conduct  yourself  with  courteous  consideration 
for  the  other  members  of  it.  This,  too,  neither 
parent  nor  child  ever  suffers  himself  to  forget. 
The  great  and  affectionate  pleasure  of  French 
domesticity  is  of  a  kind  which  could  not  exist 


128       THE   FRANCE   OF   TODAY 

if  conventions  were  too  much  neglected.  The 
result  is  that,  in  the  full  security  of  their  foyers, 
the  French  seem  surrounded  by  something  like 
the  pleasures  and  the  limitations  which  make 
at  once  agreeable  and  a  shade  monotonous  our 
American  experiences  in  general  society. 

This  comparative  lack  of  personal  privacy  in 
French  family  life  is  not  merely  an  external 
thing.  It  goes  so  deep  in  the  French  nature 
that,  as  a  matter  of  course,  each  member  of 
any  family  takes  a  degree  of  interest  in  the 
affairs  of  his  immediate  relations  which,  under 
other  conditions,  might  seem  intrusive.  The 
simplest  of  examples  will  illustrate  what  I 
mean.  It  happened  that  I  had  been  talking 
with  some  French  friends  about  a  young 
American,  whose  family  were  in  Europe,  and 
who  had  not  found  his  prospects  promising  in 
the  profession  which  he  was  attempting  to 
practise.  When  a  fortunate  accident  had  of- 
fered him  an  opportunity  of  more  congenial 
kind  in  a  totally  different  occupation  he  had 
not  hesitated  to  seize  it;  and  he  had  written 
the  news  to  his  parents  as  a  matter  of  mutual 
congratulation  —  a  view  of  the  matter  in  which 
they  cordially  agreed.  He  was  something  like 
twenty-five  years  old ;  according  to  American 
ideas,  he  was   quite  of  an  age  to  decide  such 


THE   FAMILY  129 

questions  for  himself;  his  parents  were  unaf- 
fectedly pleased  that  he  had  done  so.  To  my 
French  friends  this  state  of  affairs  was  com- 
pletely perplexing.  Their  first  impulse  was  to 
condemn  the  boy's  conduct  as  cruelly  undutiful, 
and  to  sympathize  deeply  with  parents  whose 
dignity  had  been  so  neglected  that  they  had  not 
even  been  formally  consulted  about  a  matter 
which  evidently  concerned  the  professional  fu- 
ture of  their  child.  When  I  had  explained  that, 
so  far  from  feeling  neglected  or  slighted,  these 
parents  were  in  a  state  of  eager  gratification,  my 
French  friends  were  hardly  able  to  understand 
how  the  parents  could  be  human.  Had  such  a 
question  presented  itself  to  a  youth  among  them- 
selves, they  explained,  he  would  have  laid  it  be- 
fore his  father  and  mother,  who  would  probably 
have  consulted  in  turn  a  considerable  number  of 
relatives.  Inasmuch  as  it  involved  a  complete 
change  in  the  career  probably  before  the  boy,  the 
presumption  would  have  been  strongly  against 
the  change.  Unless  arguments  in  its  favor  had 
seemed  convincing  to  his  elders,  almost  against 
their  wills,  their  opposition  to  it  would  have  been 
decided.  And  a  strong  opposition  on  their  part 
would  have  prevented  a  dutiful  youth  from  taking 
any  further  steps  in  the  matter ;  he  would  regret- 
fully have  turned  back  to  the  professional  career 


180       THE   FRANCE   OF   TODAY 

previously  chosen  for  him,  even  though  it  offered 
him  small  hope  either  of  contentment  or  of  suc- 
cess. To  my  French  friends,  in  brief,  the  ques- 
tion of  a  boy's  profession  seemed  primarily  a 
family  question,  and  not  one  which  chiefly  con- 
cerned the  youth  himself.  They  recognized,  no 
doubt,  after  due  reflection,  that  our  American 
view  of  the  case,  once  explained,  was  compre- 
hensible. To  all  appearances,  the  while,  it  did 
not  impress  them  as  exactly  respectable.  A 
line  of  conduct  which  an  American  would  have 
found  encouraging  for  its  enterprise  appeared  to 
French  minds  recklessly  adventurous. 

When  you  come  to  understand  this  state  of 
feeling,  you  begin  to  perceive  how  differently  the 
question  of  marriage  presents  itself  in  France 
and  among  ourselves.  To  us,  even  though  it 
clearly  involves  some  readjustment  of  family 
relations,  it  seems  first  and  foremost  to  concern 
the  happiness  and  the  future  of  the  individuals 
who  wish  to  marry.  To  the  French,  though 
they  by  no  means  neglect  this  consideration  of 
happiness,  a  marriage  seems  even  more  obviously 
a  readjustment  of  family  relations.  In  all  likeli- 
hood our  conventional  assumptions  about  the 
manner  in  which  French  marriages  are  con- 
tracted are  mistaken.  To  arrange  the  marriage 
of  your  daughter  without  regard  to  her  inclina- 


THE   FAMILY  131 

tions  would  be  as  repugnant  to  French  sentiment 
as  to  ours.  But  when  a  project  of  marriage 
comes  to  be  considered,  every  member  of  a 
family  —  from  eldest  grandparent  to  youngest 
brother  or  sister — is  disposed  to  view  it  in 
France  as  a  matter  of  deep  and  enduring  com- 
mon interest. 

Take,  for  example,  the  normal  position  of  any 
French  girl.  So  long  as  she  remains  unmarried, 
her  position,  in  her  family,  is  inevitably  second- 
ary. She  has  her  pleasant  place  in  the  foyer ^ 
no  doubt ;  and  her  pretty  little  daily  duties  and 
accomplishments.  She  is  the  object  of  domestic 
affection,  too,  which  she  reciprocates.  At  the 
same  time,  she  is  always  the  object  of  rather 
extreme  supervision.  Anything  like  personal 
independence  can  come  to  her  only  through  the 
medium  of  marriage.  Naturally  and  frankly, 
then,  she  wants  to  be  married  somewhat  more 
eagerly  than  is  generally  the  case  in  America. 
French  girls,  I  believe,  have  been  known  to 
regret  this  necessity  of  their  existence,  or  at 
least  to  express  polite  envy  of  American  free- 
dom in  such  matters ;  but  I  never  heard  of  one 
who  looked  with  complete  equanimity  on  the 
prospect  of  single  blessedness  in  France.  Any 
other  prospect,  the  while,  depends  on  many  other 
considerations  than  those  of  unimpeded  personal 


132       THE   FRANCE   OF   TODAY 

inclination.  For  one  thing,  the  very  nature  of 
the  French  family,  in  its  pleasant  social  unity, 
keeps  young  women  always  within  sight  of  their 
elders.  Except  in  unusual  cases  —  by  accident  or 
by  stealth  —  a  French  girl  rarely  sees  a  youth  of 
her  own  age,  or  indeed  any  man  except  her  near- 
est relatives,  by  himself ;  wherefore  anjrthing  like 
the  innocent  flirtations  conventional  in  America 
are  out  of  the  question,  and  with  them  the  confi- 
dent personal  friendship  between  boys  and  girls 
which  is  their  frequent  result.  What  youths  a 
French  girl  knows,  she  knows  only  as  they  appear 
on  their  best  behavior,  before  critical  eyes.  She 
has  not  the  happy  privilege,  assumed  in  America 
as  natural,  of  blamelessly  inspecting  her  prospects 
for  herself  To  a  very  considerable  degree,  her 
opportunities  of  acquaintance,  not  to  speak  of 
friendship,  must  be  controlled  by  the  conditions 
of  her  family  life.  This  very  limitation  would, 
of  itself,  prevent  her  from  regarding  marriage 
so  independently  as  American  girls  can. 

Furthermore,  the  actual  conditions  of  French 
law  make  a  mamage  less  an  individual  matter 
than  we  of  America  are  accustomed  to  consider 
it.  In  most  of  the  United  States  anybody  can 
get  duly  married  at  a  few  minutes'  notice.  In 
France,  not  to  speak  of  the  somewhat  intricate 
official  ceremonies  required  by  the  law,  there  is  no 


THE  FAMILY  133 

convenient  way  in  which  anybody  can  be  legally 
married  without  the  formal  consent  of  parents,  so 
long  as  the  parents  survive.  A  mature  man  or 
woman,  to  be  sure,  who  desires  to  marry  some 
one  unwelcome  to  a  parent,  may  proceed  to 
summon  that  parent  before  a  _^tribunal,  and  there 
establish  independence  of  consent.  Such  a  pro- 
cess, however,  is  evidently  rather  scandalous ; 
and  the  last  thing  which  any  Frenchman  would 
desire  in  any  aspect  of  his  domestic  relations 
is  a  public  scandal.  More  surely  still,  such  a 
process,  even  though  sanctioned  by  the  letter  of 
the  law,  generally  seems  quite  without  the  sanc- 
tion of  decent  public  opinion.  Arguments  with 
refractory  parents  are  by  no  means  unknown ; 
they  may  well  become  prolonged  and  passionate, 
or  even  complicate  themselves  with  such  devices 
as  make  interesting  the  intricacies  of  many 
French  novels  and  comedies.  But  unless  a 
parent,  willingly  or  unwillingly,  gives  formal 
consent  to  the  marriage  of  a  child,  the  marriage 
will  remain,  in  the  opinion  of  orderly  friends, 
almost  as  deplorable  as  if  it  had  been  dispensed 
with.  I  remember  a  pathetic  story  of  a  man  in 
middle  hfe  who  fell  deeply  in  love  with  an  irre- 
proachable woman  for  whom  his  mother  had 
conceived  insuperable  dislike.  He  pleaded  with 
the  old  lady  for  years,  in  vain.     At  last  she  fell 


134       THE   FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

ill.  Her  death  would  have  removed  the  only 
obstacle  to  his  happiness.  On  her  very  death- 
bed, however,  her  spirit  did  not  relent.  If  her 
son  should  follow  his  inclination,  the  mother  in- 
sisted, even  when  she  was  dead  and  gone,  he 
must  always  remember  that  it  would  be  against 
her  passionately  stated  will.  And  he  bowed  to 
the  inevitable.  His  sense  of  family  duty,  of 
obedience  to  a  parent  —  even  though  cruelly  un- 
reasonable—  was  stronger  than  all  the  force  of 
an  honorable  and  unshaken  passion.  He  never 
married  at  all. 

To  children  and  to  parents  alike,  accordingly, 
marriage  seems  less  an  individual  matter  than  a 
social.  It  evidently  involves  the  readjustment 
of  a  foyer,  already  affectionately  established ; 
if  all  go  well,  it  will  presently  involve  the 
establishment  of  a  new  foyer,  with  all  its  pleas- 
ures and  its  duties.  It  is  this  new  foyer,  as  we 
have  seen,  for  which  the  much  misunderstood 
dot,  or  dowry,  is  arranged.  Compared  with  any 
conception  generally  familiar  to  good  Americans, 
this  consecrated  conception  of  domesticity  in 
France  gives  one  of  our  conventional  terms 
for  marriage  a  new  and  deeper  significance.  We 
have  immemorially  spoken  of  marriage  as  a  part- 
nership ;  but  we  are  not  apt  to  think  of  it  as  pri- 
marily so.     To  the  French  mind,  it  seems  to  be. 


THE   FAMILY  135 

A  marriage  is  too  serious  a  matter  to  be  dominated 
by  romantic  notions  of  unimpeded  inclination. 
It  involves  too  many  questions  of  this  work-a-day 
w^orld  —  questions  which  can  be  met  only  by  the 
prudence  of  corporate  good  sense.  There  is  no 
reason  why  a  partnership,  even  of  the  literal  kind, 
should  not  be  confidently  cordial  and  friendly; 
there  is  no  reason  why  you  should  generally 
enter  into  one  with  any  violence  to  your  incli- 
nation; and  these  considerations  become  more 
potent  than  ever  when  the  partnership  involved 
is  the  life-long  and  intimate  partnership  of  wed- 
lock. But  all  such  considerations  rather  empha- 
size than  obscure  the  truth  that  the  French  ideal 
of  marriage,  tenderly  admirable  though  it  be,  is 
primarily  an  ideal  of  cordial  and  friendly  domestic 
partnership. 

At  the  time  when  this  view  of  the  matter  was 
defining  itself  in  my  mind,  an  eminent  member 
of  the  Academic  Fran9aise  gave  utterance  to  an 
opinion  which  occasioned  considerable  momentary 
discussion,  sometimes  rather  exuberantly  merry 
in  form.  Precisely  how  he  expressed  the  opinion 
I  do  not  remember.  What  remains  fixed  in 
my  memory  is  that,  after  pondering  on  the 
general  problems  of  life  so  frequently  evident  in 
the  literature  of  France,  he  permitted  himself  to 
conjecture  that  things  might  go  better  if  people 


136       THE   FRANCE   OF   TODAY 

who  got  married  were  more  apt  to  be  in  love 
with  each  other.  To  an  American  mind,  this 
opinion  seemed  either  commonplace  or  else  para- 
doxical in  emphasis.  The  matrimonial  infelicities 
which  occasionally  occur  in  our  country  more  fre- 
quently arise  from  bUnd  intensity  of  love  in  the 
beginning  than  from  prudent  lack  thereof.  To 
his  French  readers,  on  the  other  hand,  the  opin- 
ion seemed  either  exasperatingly  or  divertingly 
to  contradict  established  principle.  To  them 
marriage  was  obviously  a  matter  of  serious  pru- 
dence —  to  be  contracted  as  reverently,  as  soberly, 
and  as  much  in  the  fear  of  God  as  circumstances 
would  allow.  Love  was  doubtless  an  admirable 
and  beautiful  thing ;  but  in  its  mundane  aspect 
not  to  be  controlled  by  all  the  reverent  and 
God-fearing  sobriety  imaginable.  In  this  case, 
accordingly,  academic  wisdom  seemed  a  frivo- 
lous guide,  counselling  that  in  the  most  solemn 
business  of  life  we  should  do  well  to  throw 
prudence  to  the  winds. 

For  when  once  a  French  marriage  is  accom- 
plished, and  the  new  family  life  begins,  there 
arise  for  the  parties  concerned  the  new  duties 
involved  in  their  resolution  of  partnership.  Any- 
where these  duties  are  of  different  kinds.  Any- 
where you  may  generally  classify  them  in  two 
groups :  one  consists  of  the  purely  conjugal  duties 


THE   FAMILY  137 

involved  in  the  individual  relations  of  the  happy 
or  unhappy  pair ;  the  other  consists  of  the  do- 
mestic duties  involved  in  their  common  relation 
to  their  parents,  their  children,  their  friends, 
and  their  servants,  —  in  their  household  govern- 
ment and  in  their  dealings,  of  whatever  kind, 
with  other  people  than  themselves.  Everywhere 
in  the  world,  no  doubt,  both  kinds  of  duty  are 
recognized,  frankly,  willingly,  and  loyally.  It 
would  everywhere  be  recognized,  too,  that  the 
more  nearly  these  not  needfully  divergent  phases 
of  duty  harmonize,  the  better  for  everybody  con- 
cerned. But  certainly,  in  America,  the  conjugal 
phase  of  duty  is  held  to  be  the  more  essential ; 
in  France,  on  the  other  hand,  the  more  essential 
phase  of  duty  seems  rather  the  domestic.  The 
difference  goes  deep ;  it  is  a  question  of  im- 
memorial tradition,  strengthened  by  all  the  force 
of  affectionate  instinct.  With  us  the  strongest 
of  human  ties  is  believed  to  be  that  which 
attracts  human  beings  to  one  another.  With 
them,  the  most  durable  of  human  ties  is,  with 
equal  fervor,  believed  to  be  that  of  parentage,  of 
common  blood.  Both  conceptions  are  beautiful ; 
both  noble ;  it  were  futile  to  trouble  ourselves 
with  wondering  which  may  immutably  be  held 
the  better. 

For,  in  the  full  meaning  of  a  term  familiar  to 


138       THE   FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

anyone  who  has  ever  read  French  Uterature, 
both  are  wonderfully  implied.  In  all  human 
language,  I  believe,  there  was  never  gathered 
together  more  admirable  significance  than  you 
shall  find,  when  you  come  emotionally  to  under- 
stand them,  in  the  French  words  honnete  femme. 
The  Frenchwomen  who  deserve  to  be  so  called 
are  countless  everywhere  throughout  France. 
They  are  not  only  the  most  admirable  type  of 
French  womanhood ;  they  are  the  most  perva- 
sive, the  most  frequent,  the  most  profoundly 
characteristic.  That  they  are  not  always  the 
most  instantly  evident  to  careless,  to  foreign,  to 
artistic  eyes  is  partly  because,  like  light  and  air, 
you  shall  find  them  wherever  you  go  ;  and  partly 
because  their  unrepining  devotion  to  their  ab- 
sorbing duties  keeps  them  inconspicuous.  They 
would  not  be  themselves  if  they  were  not  con- 
jugally faithful  —  and  faithful  not  only  in  per- 
sonal constancy,  the  sense  most  instantly  implied' 
by  these  terms,  but  faithful  also  in  devotion  to 
their  husbands  throughout  the  complicated  and 
perplexing  cares  of  incessant  responsibility ;  con- 
jugal love  would  not  be  enough  without  life-long 
conjugal  friendship  too.  But  all  the  conjugal 
love  and  friendship  imaginable  would  not  suffice, 
either,  without  faithful  observance  of  domestic 
duties,  as  well,  in  all  their  intricate  range.     An 


THE   FAMILY  139 

honest  woman  of  France  is  not  only  a  good 
wife ;  she  remains,  as  she  was  in  girlhood,  a  good 
daughter,  affectionately  faithful  to  the  family 
which  gave  her  birth.  She  is  a  good  sister,  too, 
and  a  good  friend,  both  to  those  whose  ties  of 
blood  are  her  own,  and  to  those  with  whom  her 
marriage  has  brought  her  into  relation  almost  as 
dear  as  if  it  had  been  sanctioned  by  the  full  flood 
of  nature.  She  is  a  good  mother,  even  more 
surely  still,  cherishing  with  the  purest  of  human 
passion  the  children  whom  she  has  brought  into 
the  world.  And  her  very  obligations  to  these 
children,  as  well  as  to  their  father,  compel  her 
also  to  be  a  good  housewife  —  never  to  neglect 
the  humdrum  details  of  her  daily  surroundings. 
Unending,  intricate,  prosaic  duty  is  the  condition 
of  her  whole  existence ;  and  she  does  it,  from 
girlhood  to  old  age,  unselfishly,  happily,  cheer- 
fully. For  not  the  least  of  her  convictions  is 
that  she  must  make  the  life  about  her  a  pleas- 
ant thing  for  those  who  have  their  part  in  it. 
To  fail  in  any  of  these  ideals  is  to  lack  some- 
thing of  what  an  honest  woman  should  be  —  no 
less  if  the  failure  affect  only  domestic  duty  than 
if  it  be  concerned  with  conjugal. 

And  just  as  a  good  Frenchwoman  must  be 
daughter,  mother,  sister  as  truly  and  as  devot- 
edly as  she  must  be  wife  and  partner,  so  a  good 


140       THE   FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

Frenchman  must  be  not  only  husband  but  son, 
too,  and  father  and  brother.  Theirs  is  a  far  older 
world  than  ours  ;  not  necessarily  a  more  intricate, 
perhaps,  but  a  far  more  systematic.  It  is  more 
/used  than  ours  to  the  conditions  which  must 
/everywhere  surround  and  affect  human  nature. 
I  It  has  fewer  dreams,  more  certainty  of  what  must 
befall  us^glL^  It  is  far  more  wilUng  to  general- 
ize the  condition  of  any  individual.  It  admits 
more  of  what,  however  unwelcome,  is  inevitable. 
It  accepts  limitations,  bereavements,  errors,  — 
not  because  they  can  ever  lack  poignancy,  but 
because  with  all  their  poignancy  they  are  like 
death  and  sunset,  conditions  of  all  human  exist- 
ence everywhere.  The  French,  perhaps,  have 
strayed  further  from  Eden  than  we.  That  need 
not  mean  that  we  have  travelled  beyond  them 
on  the  road  to  Paradise. 

Among  ourselves,  no  doubt,  the  ethical  ideal 
is  perfection.  So  it  is  everywhere,  and  not  least 
in  France.  The  standards  by  which  the  French 
would  judge  one  another  are  at  least  as  severe 
as  any  which  we  should  ever  think  of  applying 
among  ourselves.  But,  even  more  surely  than 
we,  the  French  are  aware  that  humanity  can 
never  be  quite  perfect.  And  when,  in  consider- 
ing all  the  range  of  a  man's  life,  they  feel  that 
we  should  be  a  little  blind  to  his  faults  and  very 


THE   FAMILY  141 

kind  to  his  virtues,  their  prepossession,  in  judg- 
ing him,  is  not  the  same  as  ours.  With  us, 
unless  we  are  boldly  unconventional,  the  chief  of 
all  our  human  duties  is  assumed  to  be  conjugal 
rectitude.  So  long  as  a  man  faithfully  observes 
his  marriage  vows,  the  lenient  opinion  of  America 
will  not  so  carefully  scrutinize  his  conduct  to  his 
parents  and  his  children,  his  brothers  and  his 
sisters.  Above  all,  it  will  hardly  trouble  itself  to 
inquire  whether  he  behaves  agreeably  at  home,  or 
permits  himself,  within  doors,  the  luxury  of  com- 
plete freedom  from  uncomfortable  self-control. 
In  France,  on  the  other  hand,  where  the  family 
is  so  deeply  rooted  in  national  affection,  no  man 
can  neglect  his  homely  domestic  duties  without 
braving  public  opinion.  For  this  severity  there 
is  a  touch  of  compensation.  So  long  as  he  does 
his  faithful  best  in  his  domestic  relations,  his 
conjugal  vagaries  may  perhaps  be  held  secondary 
—  much  as  domestic  vagaries  might  be  held 
among  ourselves. 

It  is  with  no  purpose  of  maintaining  either 
view  to  be  better  or  worse  than  the  other  that  I 
am  trying  to  make  clear  this  deep  difference  of 
ethical  feehng.  It  is  only  for  the  purpose  of 
defining,  so  far  as  lies  in  my  power,  the  extraor- 
dinary intensity  of  love  for  the  family  which  in- 
spires all  classes  in  France.     One  finds  it  often 


142       THE   FRANCE   OF   TODAY 

satirized  in  French  literature,  where  complete  de- 
votion of  family  affection  —  particularly  among 
the  lower  classes  —  is  frequently  presented  in 
salient  contrast  with  the  lines  of  conduct  to 
which  one  or  another  member  of  the  affectionate 
family  may  be  led  by  perversity  or  compelled  by 
circumstance  to  resort.  One  meets  it,  again  and 
again,  in  every  phase  of  French  life,  and  some- 
times sui-prisingly. 

Not  long  after  I  first  arrived  in  Paris,  I  remem- 
ber, a  rather  scandalous  case  happened  for  some 
days  to  occupy  the  public  prints  —  until  some- 
thing else  distracted  popular  attention.  A  certain 
unfortunate  Parisian  had  been  detected  in  a  course 
of  gallantry  unhappily  remote  from  conjugal  rec- 
titude. The  matter  got  into  the  courts,  and  in- 
volved the  pubhcation  of  letters  which  he  had 
written,  in  vain  hope  of  averting  a  catastrophe. 
In  these  he  made  no  pretence  of  denying  his  mis- 
behavior ;  but  he  begged,  most  piteously,  that  it 
should  be  forgiven,  or  forgotten,  or  hushed  up  — 
as  the  case  might  be  —  on  the  ground  that,  if 
matters  were  pushed  to  extreme,  the  most  sacred 
fact  of  his  existence — his  foyer  —  would  be 
broken  up.  Such  an  appalling  event  as  this, 
he  implied,  would  make  his  life  meaningless  ;  the 
prospect  was  one  which  must  induce  even  ven- 
geance to  relent.     To  me^  ^§  ^  stranger,  these 


THE   FAMILY  143 

letters  seemed  inconceivably  grotesque.  How 
anyone  who  had  been  so  far  from  exemplary  as 
this  errant  husband  could  pretend  to  cherish 
domestic  sentiment,  I  could  not  imagine.  Not 
the  least  repellent  phase  of  the  whole  thing  was 
what  thus  seemed  to  be  his  clumsy  hypocrisy. 

As  I  came  to  know  the  French  better,  I 
began  to  feel  how  deeply  mistaken  I  had  been. 
I  may  be  so  still ;  for  I  do  not  remember  having 
verified  my  final  impression  of  this  incident 
by  referring  it  to  any  of  my  French  friends. 
Nothing,  of  course,  could  have  averted,  or  much 
have  modified,  the  grotesque  contrast  between 
the  unhappy  man's  conduct  and  the  considera- 
tions which  he  invoked  in  his  appeals  for  mercy. 
But  the  appeals  themselves  ceased  to  seem  trans- 
parently hypocritical ;  in  the  end  I  came  rather 
to  believe  them  pathetically  sincere.  Whatever 
he  might  deserve  as  an  individual,  I  could  see, 
this  human  being,  bom  and  bred  in  the  intensity 
of  domestic  tradition  so  genuine  among  all  the 
French,  could  not  contemplate  without  passionate 
grief  the  destruction  of  his  domestic  interior 
where,  for  all  that  appeared  to  the  contrary,  his 
kindly  social  qualities  had  made  daily  life  pleas- 
ant to  his  nearest  —  if  not  quite  to  his  dearest. 
So  long  as  he  had  done  his  duty  at  home,  he 
could  still  be  conscientious  in  believing  himself 


144       THE   FRANCE   OF   TODAY 

the  only  safe  and  sure  protector  and  guide  for  his 
unfortunate  children. 

In  brief,  as  one  grows  familiar  with  the  French, 
one  grows  more  and  more  wonderingly  aware  of 
how  their  whole  conception  of  the  family,  with  all 
the  consecrated  emotional  sanction  of  the  foyer ^ 
makes  them  look  upon  themselves  primarily  not 
as  individuals,  but  rather  as  members  each  of 
his  own  little  society.  The  family  is  a  partner- 
ship, if  you  will,  —  a  corporation,  or  a  clan.  It  is 
something  more  than  the  sum  of  the  individuals 
whom  it  comprises  in  all  their  human  and  fallible 
complexity ;  it  has  a  dominant,  supreme  claim 
to  devotion  for  its  own  sake.  The  human  beings 
who  compose  it,  like  those  who  at  any  given 
time  may  compose  a  nation,  must  pass  into 
oblivion  ;  but  the  family  itself  can  outlive  them 
perennially.  The  first  of  human  duties  thus  be- 
comes not  individual,  but  rather  self-abnegating 
and  social.  To  this  ideal  of  duty  the  French 
are  deeply  loyal.  If  they  had  not  followed  it 
throughout  the  generations  with  eager,  unselfish, 
persistent  fidelity,  their  society  could  not  exist  in 
the  form  which  it  has  inherited  fi-om  their  past 
and  is  transmitting  to  their  future. 


THE  FRENCH   TEMPERAMENT 

THE  considerations  on  which  we  have  been 
dwelling  may  seem  to  point  towards  the 
conclusion  that  the  French,  as  one  grows 
to  know  them,  prove  to  lack  individuality.  This 
is  far  from  the  case.  We  might  equally  have 
fancied,  from  our  consideration  of  their  university 
life,  that  they  are  deficient  in  emotion,  or  at  least 
in  tenderness  of  sentiment.  How  deep  that 
error  would  have  been  our  glances  at  their  family 
life  must  have  served  to  show  us.  To  understand 
how  individual  they  remain,  amid  all  their  willing 
acceptance  of  traditional  system,  we  must  try  to 
sympathize  with  certain  marked  characteristics 
of  their  national  temperament. 

This  is  not  so  easy  a  matter  as  it  might  seem. 
An  attempt  sympathetically  to  understand  any 
foreign  people,  however  cordially  disposed,  must 
always  be  undertaken  with  delicacy  —  not  least 
because  you  can  never  be  quite  sure  that  you 
may  not  inadvertently  fall  into  errors,  or  infelici- 
ties of  phrase,  more  than  likely  in  turn  to  bring 

10 


146       THE   FRANCE   OF   TODAY 

about  unhappy  misconception  on  the  part  of  the 
friends  whose  character  you  are  endeavoring  to 
explain,  j  Dehcate  anywhere,  such  an  effort  seems 
especially  so  when  it  concerns  the  French ;  and 
this  for  more  reasons  than  one./  As  the  whole 
world  knows,  they  are  full  of  sensitive  feeling, 
and,  like  all  swiftly  emotional  human  beings,  they 
are  almost  equally  ready  to  welcome  sympathy 
and  to  resent  misunderstanding.  What  seems 
less  generally  understood  is  that  when  mere  ac- 
quaintance deepens  into  friendship,  they  often 
prove,  in  comparison  with  Americans,  remarkable 
for  the  last  quality  which  the  simple  ease  of 
their  manners  and  the  extreme  frankness  of  their 
mental  habits  might  have  led  you  to  expect. 
This  is  something  very  like  personal  reticence. 

No  people  could  be  more  free  or  more  kindly 
in  their  general  talk ;  none  could  receive  you  in 
a  spirit  more  genuinely  and  delightfully  friendly  ; 
none,  when  they  welcome  you  in  their  homes, 
could  make  you  feel  the  welcome  more  unre- 
served, less  clouded  by  any  shade  of  consciousness 
that  you  are  not  quite  of  themselves.  And  yet, 
after  many  a  pleasant  hour  with  them,  often  full 
of  stimulating  intellectual  interest,  you  may  find 
yourself  surprised,  on  reflection,  that  you  have 
not  really  grown  to  know  these  friends  any  better 
than  before.     At  least,  if  you  have,  it  is  not  be- 


THE   FRENCH   TEMPERAMENT     147 

cause  they  have  told  you  anything  more  of  their 
inner  lives ;  it  is  only  because  the  eager  anima- 
tion with  which  they  have  discussed  matters 
apart  from  themselves  has  incidentally  implied 
what  has  been  going  on  within  them.  It  would 
be  a  grave  error,  I  think,  to  conclude  from  this 
that  they  have  meant  to  hold  you,  as  a  visitor, 
at  any  distance ;  or  even  that,  without  intention, 
they  have  in  any  manner  done  so.  The  better  I 
knew  them,  the  less  I  was  inclined  to  believe 
that  there  was  any  shade  of  difference  between 
their  treatment  of  me,  as  a  foreign  friend,  and 
their  treatment  of  the  French  friends  whom 
they  welcomed  at  the  same  time.  Even  among 
themselves  it  seemed  to  me  —  in  the  full  con- 
fidence of  life-long  friendship  —  they  were  far 
less  apt  than  we  to  stray  into  speech,  or  even 
into  thoughts  which,  in  distinction  from  con- 
fident, might  be  called  confidential. 

It  was  more  than  once  my  privilege,  for  ex- 
ample, to  dine  with  a  company  of  men  who  had 
been  friends  from  boyhood.  Nothing  could  have 
been  more  spontaneous  than  the  eagerness  of 
their  enjoyment  in  meeting  each  other  familiarly 
and  in  strengthening  at  each  new  meeting  the  tie 
which  had  held  them  together  through  years  of 
busy  maturity,  in  some  instances  crowned  with 
conspicuous  success.     Nothing  could  have  been 


148       THE   FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

more  delightful  than  their  alert,  helpful  interest 
in  whatever  concerned  any  of  their  little  group 

—  their  sympathy  with  the  trials  of  one,  their 
complete  enthusiasm  when  another  achieved  some 
object  of  his  effort,  or  some  just  reward  for  work 
well  done.  One  felt  as  one  might  feel  when  re- 
ceived into  the  full  and  confident  intimacy  of 
some  affectionate  club  of  congenial  classmates, 
graduated  years  ago  from  an  American  college. 
Such  an  experience  is  not  only  pleasant;  it  is 
tender.  You  remember  those  who  have  so  wel- 
comed you  with  something  like  their  own  conta- 
gious sentiment  of  mutual  good-will.  And  yet  all 
the  while,  when  I  was  with  these  French  friends, 

—  who  were  among  those,  I  hope,  who  shall 
always  stay  friends,  —  I  was  aware,  even  when 
they  were  talking  most  freely  with  one  another, 
of  something  more  like  restraint  than  would 
normally  have  characterized  such  a  company  in 
America.  It  was  not  easy  to  define.  It  was 
not  reserve,  yet  it  had  some  touch  of  reserve. 
It  seemed  based  on  a  deep,  impulsive,  instinctive 
sentiment  that  the  innermost  truth  of  personal 
feeling  could  not  decently  be  revealed  —  that 
such  truth  should  be  kept  sacred  for  occasions 
almost  of  confession,  devout  or  mundane,  as  the 
case  might  be.  To  unveil  it,  as  we  might  un- 
veil it  at  home,  I  sometimes   came  to  fancy, 


THE   FRENCH  TEMPERAMENT    149 

would  have  seemed  to  them  Kke  some  shameless 
exposure  of  spiritual  nudity.  I  can  find  no 
better  name  for  the  trait  I  am  trying  to  define 
than  an  instinctive  modesty  of  the  spirit. 

Indefinite,  elusive,  though  this  peculiarity  be, 
in  its  teasing  contrast  with  their  voluble  frank- 
ness concerning  other  matters  than  spiritual,  there 
can  be  no  doubt  that  something  of  the  sort  is 
deeply  characteristic  of  the  French.  However 
infelicitously  I  may  have  explained  it,  I  am  sure 
that  it  is  there  to  explain.  I  am  sure,  too,  that 
one  must  understand  it  sympathetically,  no 
matter  how  little  one  can  articulately  define  it, 
before  one  can  fairly  understand  the  mutual  mis- 
apprehensions which  have  so  long  obscured  the 
personal  intercourse  of  the  French  with  their 
neighbors,  the  English,  or  with  us  of  America. 
To  put  the  matter  most  gently,  there  can  be  no 
question  that,  broadly  speaking,  the  French  are 
apt  to  appear  in  English  or  American  eyes,  and 
the  English  or  Americans  in  French  eyes,  as 
somewhat  deficient  in  a  virtue  equally  respected 
by  all  three  —  the  virtue  of  candor.  Now  all 
three  of  us  understand  that,  so  far  as  this  opinion 
concerns  ourselves,  it  is  mistaken.  No  fervor  of 
French  conviction  could  ever  bring  Englishmen 
and  Americans  honestly  to  agree  that  the  typical 
nature  of  England  —  which  so  far  as  this  consid- 


150       THE   FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

eration  goes  includes  that  of  America  as  well  — 
is  perfidious  and  hypocritical.  Nor  could  all 
the  virtuous  indignation  ever  expressed  across 
the  Channel  or  the  Atlantic  ever  induce  honest 
Frenchmen  to  conceive  their  national  character 
as  intentionally  insincere.  Nobody  can  doubt, 
however,  that  these  misconceptions  have  long 
had,  on  both  sides,  the  rooted  sanction  of  tradi- 
tion. Our  present  business,  accordingly,  is  not 
so  much  to  disprove  the  traditions  as  to  seek  for 
something  which  shall  explain  them. 

This  may  be  found,  I  think,  in  the  different 
aspects  in  which  the  national  tempers  of  Eng- 
land and  of  France  regard  the  quality  of  candor. 
The  English  ideal  of  candor,  which  I  con- 
ceive to  be  substantially  ours  of  America  too, 
is  intimately  personal :  a  candid  man  we  think 
is  one  who  reveals  to  us,  at  any  moment,  exactly 
the  condition  of  his  inner  life,  in  all  its  trouble- 
some complexity  of  thought  and  emotion.  So 
long  as  he  does  not  keep  this  hidden,  we  are 
more  than  merciful  to  the  manner  in  which  he 
may  confront  the  specific  problems  of  life  and  of 
philosophy ;  we  see  no  everlasting  reason,  for  ex- 
ample, why  he  should  put  himself  to  any  incon- 
venient pains  in  order  that  his  preaching  and  his 
practice  —  or  his  assertions  and  the  facts  they 
concern  —  should  agree.     If  he  let  us  know  him- 


THE   FRENCH   TEMPERAMENT     151 

self  as  unreservedly  as  he  can,  we  believe  him 
completely  candid.  The  French  ideal  of  candor, 
on  the  other  hand,  is  rather  intellectual  than 
personal.  It  admits,  it  almost  demands,  a  degree 
of  personal  reticence  which,  by  tempers  like  ours, 
might  well  be  held  to  pass  beyond  the  extreme 
of  prudence ;  but  when  it  confronts  problems, 
whether  of  life  or  of  philosophy,  it  rigidly  de- 
mands a  degree  of  intellectual  frankness  which 
our  less  alert  mental  habit  has  hitherto  allowed 
us  cheerfully  to  neglect. 

The  difference  we  are  trying  to  understand  is 
not,  to  be  sure,  a  contradiction;  it  is  rather  a 
matter  of  ethical  emphasis.  Frenchmen  and 
Americans  would  equally  admit  that  ideal  can- 
dor in  all  its  heavenly  perfection  should  be  in- 
tellectual and  personal  alike._  To  the  French, 
however,  the  intellectual  phase  of  this  virtue  pre- 
sents itself  as  the  more  essential ;  to  us  the  more 
important  phase  of  it  seems  to  be  the  personal. 
As  a  nation  the  French  are  no  more  untruthful 
than  we  are  hypocritical.  Yet  the  fact  that  each 
of  us  is  apt,  at  least  in  unthinking  moments,  to 
suspect  the  other  of  such  addiction  to  national 
vice  goes  deep  in  the  characters  of  us  both.  And 
beyond  peradventure,  this  unlucky  tendency  to 
misapprehension  makes  profound  mutual  sympa- 
thy  or  insight  no  easy  task  for  one  who  should 


152       THE   FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

attempt  to  explain  to  either  nation  the  tem- 
peramental nature  of  the  other. 

What  is  more,  when  anybody  tries  to  give 
some  account  of  the  national  temperament  of 
the  French,  another  difficulty  presents  itself,  ob- 
vious the  moment  you  begin  to  travel  about  the 
pleasant  land  of  France.  In  America  we  have 
an  artless  way  of  deploring  the  ignorance  of 
foreigners  who  suppose  the  United  States  to  be 
the  home  of  a  single  and  homogeneous  people ; 
we  smile  at  the  ingenuous  way  in  which  Euro- 
peans confuse  North  and  South,  East  and  West; 
we  wonder  how  anybody  can  pretend  to  intelli- 
gence who  does  not  recognize  as  fundamental 
such  distinctions  as  we  all  feel  at  home  to  differ- 
entiate New  England  from  the  Middle  States, 
Virginia  from  Ohio,  California  from  Nebraska. 
With  equal  artlessness  we  of  America  seldom 
trouble  ourselves  to  remember  that  France  ex- 
tends from  the  Netherlands  to  the  Pyrenees,  and 
from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Alps ;  that  it  borders 
on  Belgium,  on  Germany,  on  Switzerland,  on 
Italy,  on  the  Mediterranean,  and  on  Spain ;  that 
even  well  within  its  borders  no  two  of  the  old 
provinces,  whose  names  and  traditions  survive 
almost  as  lustily  as  if  they  still  had  political 
existence,  have  been  alike  either  in  origin  or  in 
history.     The  little  differences  in  our  own  coun- 


THE   FRENCH   TEMPERAMENT     153 

try  on  which  we  lay  such  emphasis  are,  at  most, 
the  results  of  two  or  three  centuries.  Those 
which  must  meet  the  eye  of  any  traveller  in 
France  are  sometimes  older  than  Roman  Gaul — • 
lost  in  the  inscrutable  distance  of  prehistoric  an- 
tiquity. There  are  few  regions  in  the  world 
where  you  shall  find  more  incessant  variety  of 
landscape  than  in  France,  known  to  most  trav- 
ellers within  human  memory  only  from  the  trim 
lowlands  which  flit  by  the  windows  of  railway 
carriages  between  Calais  and  Paris,  or  between 
Paris  and  some  Continental  frontier.  Flanders, 
Normandy,  Brittany;  Auvergne  and  the  Ce- 
vennes ;  Provence,  the  Gironde,  Perigord  ;  Bur- 
gundy and  Champagne,  have  each  their  distinct 
aspects,  as  various  as  if  they  were  in  different 
continents  or  different  planets.  Each  has  its  own 
immemorial  forms  of  human  expression  as  well ; 
above  all,  its  own  architecture,  most  surely  evi- 
dent in  the  country  churches,  which  still  imply 
everywhere  the  pervasive  power  of  the  Catholic 
religion,  once  dominant  throughout  them  all. 
Each,  too,  has  its  own  type  of  human  beings, 
ancestrally  distinct  from  all  the  rest.  If  ever 
country  or  nation  were  composite,  it  is  the 
France  of  this  very  day. 

And  yet,  as  you  begin  to  know  France  with 
some  approach  to  familiarity,  there  grows  upon 


154       THE  FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

you  the  feeling  that  this  composite,  incongruous 
variety  of  humanity  can  somehow  be  generaUzed, 
despite  the  luxuriance  of  its  incompatible  detail. 
After  all,  our  foreign  prepossession  is  not  so  base- 
less as  it  might  sometimes  seem.  Partly,  perhaps 
chiefly,  because  of  the  dominance  of  Paris,  — 
that  extreme  centralization  of  national  life  which 
attracts  the  strong  and  the  restless  from  every 
nook  and  corner  of  France  toward  the  capital,  — 
you  come  to  perceive  that  in  many  ways  the 
French  are  really  at  one  in  some  such  sense  as 
our  foreign  commonplace  has  immemorially  sup- 
posed. Years  ago,  no  doubt,  this  impression 
would  have  been  somewhat  deeper ;  for  it  would 
have  been  confirmed  by  obvious  peculiarities  of 
personal  appearance,  even  in  Paris  itself.  How- 
ever various  among  themselves,  the  French  as  a 
people  used  to  look  their  part.  John  Leech,  for 
example,  caricatured  them,  in  a  spirit  as  far  from 
sympathetic  or  appreciative  as  that  in  which 
French  caricaturists  were  apt,  in  his  time,  to  por- 
tray the  teeth  and  the  taste  of  English  girls.  In 
his  least  happy  efforts,  the  while,  you  were  bound 
to  admit  that  his  wasp-waisted  men,  with  peg- 
top  trousers,  fantastic  hats,  and  inconceivable 
methods  of  hair-dressing,  resembled  what  any 
traveller  might  see  in  Paris  and  nowhere  else. 
This  specifically   French    aspect  of   humanity. 


THE   FRENCH   TEMPERAMENT     155 

most  familiar  perhaps  in  the  waxed  moustaches 
of  Napoleon  III,  began  to  disappear,  I  think, 
with  the  fall  of  the  Second  Empire.  Nowadays 
it  is  so  much  a  matter  of  the  past  that  your  first 
impressions  at  Paris,  whether  in  the  streets,  in 
any  public  assembly,  or  in  the  pleasant  society  of 
the  French  themselves,  is  rather  of  their  likeness, 
in  look  and  in  dress,  to  other  people  than  of  any 
unfamiliar  traits  peculiarly  their  own.  In  feat- 
ure, in  obvious  manner,  in  costume,  they  rarely 
delight  us  with  such  oddities  as  we  used  to  fancy 
typically  French.  Until  people  begin  to  speak 
you  may  often  be  at  pains  to  know  whether  they 
are  going  to  address  you  in  the  language  of 
France  or  in  your  own.  The  vivacious,  erratic 
Frenchman  of  traditional  fancy  is  as  obsolete 
as  that  unwinsomely  insular  sort  of  Englishman 
who  once  justified  the  *' Goddam"  of  Beaumar- 
chais.  This  change,  I  think,  is  not  wholly 
external.  It  goes  far  more  deep  than  the  ex- 
tending prevalence  of  London  fashions.  It  is 
one  of  many  evidences  that  the  French  are  less 
disposed  than  of  old  to  consider  the  rest  of 
humanity  as  barbarians.  But  it  does  not  mean, 
in  any  sense  whatever,  that  the  French  are  not 
still  as  French  as  they  ever  were. 

In  their  national  character  at  the  present  time, 
however,   the    most   instantly   obvious   trait   is 


156       THE  FRANCE    OF   TODAY 

by  no  means  what  you  conventionally  expect. 
Whatever  else  the  French  have  been,  they  have 
managed,  throughout  the  past,  so  to  present 
themselves  to  foreign  eyes  that  foreign  tradition 
is  everywhere  agreed  in  supposing  them  to  be 
at  least  volatile  and  gay,  if  not  completely  frivo- 
lous, in  their  general  manner  and  address.  So 
far  is  this  from  the  present  case  that  I  can  hardly 
believe  any  people  anywhere  to  seem  more 
deeply,  more  impressively,  more  startlingly  seri- 
ous than  they  now  seem  both  in  formal  inter- 
course and  still  more  when  you  begin  to  know 
them.  This  phase  of  their  nature  is  perhaps 
more  evident  among  rather  young  people  than 
among  people  old  enough  to  remember  other 
days  than  these  on  which  we  are  fallen.  One  of 
my  most  agreeable  talks  in  France  was  with  an 
elderly  gentleman  in  whom  the  solemnity  of  the 
present  time  had  not  quite  overcome  the  more 
gay  traditions  of  social  and  conversational  habit 
prevalent  in  his  youth.  With  a  deep  sense  of 
the  perplexity  of  the  situation  he  expressed  in 
epigrammatically  happy  phrase  his  despairing 
wonder  as  to  what  could  become  of  his  coun- 
try when  it  had  passed  into  the  hands  of  a  gen- 
eration so  austerely  in  earnest  as  the  dutiful  sons 
then  hospitably  gathered  to  meet  me  at  his  table. 
Their    respectful  reception   of    his   melancholy 


THE   FRENCH   TEMPERAMENT     157 

pleasantry  seemed  in  some  degree  complicated 
by  regretful  conviction  that  it  was  deplorably 
deficient  in  seriousness. 

Yet,  however  deep  this  seriousness  of  temper 
now  so  evident  among  the  younger  French,  it  is 
not  a  bit  priggish  ;  it  is  as  far  as  possible  from 
such  smug  religiosity  as  associates  itself  with 
our  conception  of  serious-minded  youths  in  Eng- 
land or  America.  It  is  in  no  wise  incompatible 
with  courage  and  courtesy  as  profound  and  as 
punctilious  as  any  which  ever  illustrated  the  tra- 
ditions of  elder  France ;  and  furthermore  it  in- 
volves a  surprising  degree  of  self-control.  A  little 
incident  of  travel  will  illustrate  what  I  mean  ; 
the  better  I  knew  French  people  the  more  it 
impressed  me  not  as  exceptional,  but  rather  as 
just  what  one  might  expect  of  them. 

It  happened  that  a  well-educated  man  of 
thirty  or  so  —  a  licencie,  who  had  formerly  con- 
templated an  official  career  —  found  himself 
compelled  by  the  illness  of  a  chauffeur  to  take 
personal  charge  of  an  automobile  which  had 
been  let  to  some  Americans  for  a  journey 
through  country  regions.  Something  went 
wrong  with  the  machine ;  so,  while  his  travel- 
lers were  at  luncheon  at  a  wayside  inn,  he  at- 
tempted, though  not  an  expert  machinist,  the 
troublesome   mechanical  task   of  putting   it   in 


158       THE  FRANCE   OF   TODAY 

order.  Exactly  what  happened  to  him  the  party 
in  his  care  did  not  understand.  A  commotion 
outside  the  inn  called  them  forth  to  the  painful 
discovery  that,  by  reason  of  some  unexpected 
start  of  the  machinery,  he  had  broken  both  bones 
of  his  right  forearm.  The  poor  fellow  was  in 
great  suffering  and  deathly  pale,  but  as  quiet  as 
if  nothing  had  happened  to  him.  His  first  words 
were  to  express  intense  regret  that  his  awkward- 
ness should  have  resulted  in  an  accident  which 
must  interrupt,  for  a  little  while,  the  pleasure  of 
their  journey.  In  all  simplicity,  his  only  thought 
seemed  to  be  not  of  his  own  misfortune  but  of 
the  inconvenience  it  involved  for  others.  The 
nearest  medical  attendance  was  in  a  large  town, 
six  or  eight  miles  away.  The  only  means  of  get- 
ting him  thither  was  a  jolting  country  cart.  For 
some  half  an  hour  after  it  stood  ready  he  refused 
to  start,  devoting  himself,  in  spite  of  his  pain,  to 
what  he  declared  to  be  obvious  duties  —  such  as 
arranging  that  his  automobile  should  be  duly 
stored  in  a  barn  until  it  could  be  sent  for,  and 
despatching  telegrams  for  someone  who  should 
come,  as  soon  as  possible,  to  replace  him.  Then 
he  finally  consented  to  jolt  oflT  toward  the  distant 
surgeon.  He  had  not  uttered  a  syllable  of  com- 
plaint ;  he  had  not  shown  a  trace  of  excitement ; 
his  only  reference  to  the  accident  was   a  re- 


THE   FRENCH   TEMPERAMENT     159 

peated  regret  that  it  must  inevitably  annoy  other 
people. 

They  had  to  follow  him  by  railway  two  or 
three  hours  later.  On  their  arrival  at  the  hotel 
where  he  had  been  driven  they  found  that  he 
had  been  taken  to  a  hospital,  for  the  reason  that 
in  the  surgeon's  opinion  the  setting  of  his  arm 
would  involve  a  degree  of  pain  requiring  anaes- 
thetics. They  anxiously  pursued  him  thither, 
to  find  that  he  was  no  longer  there.  When  he 
had  discovered  that  anaesthetics  would  confine 
him  to  his  bed  for  some  hours,  it  appeared  he 
had  insisted  that  the  bones  should  be  set  without 
them.  He  had  things  to  do,  he  had  informed  the 
surgeons,  which  would  not  permit  him  the  lux- 
ury of  lying  still,  even  for  a  single  day.  He  had 
borne  the  operation  without  a  moan  or  a  quiver. 
Then  he  had  hurried  off  to  the  nearest  telegraph 
office.  Before  he  reported  to  his  employers  at 
their  hotel,  late  in  the  evening,  he  had  arranged 
that  their  automobile  should  be  brought  on  to 
them  at  once,  and  had  received  assurance  that 
a  man  who  could  replace  him  as  driver  should 
start  to  do  so  the  very  next  day.  Nothing  could 
have  surpassed  his  quiet,  self-neglectful  devotion 
to  duty ;  unless,  indeed,  it  were  the  simplicity 
with  which  he  seemed  to  assume  it  a  matter  of 
course. 


160       THE   FRANCE   OF   TODAY 

And  yet,  a  few  days  before,  these  same  Amer- 
ican travellers  had  been  startlingly  reminded  that 
he  had  a  high  temper.  A  French  gentleman, 
having  lost  a  pair  of  spectacles  at  a  hotel  where 
both  parties  were  passing  the  night,  had  so  far 
forgotten  himself  as  to  inquire  whether  they 
might  not  perhaps  have  been  stolen  by  the  chauf- 
fem*  who  had  placed  himself  at  the  disposal  of 
the  American  tourists.  His  suspicion,  it  may  be 
added,  was  perhaps  faintly  justified  by  the  range 
of  anecdote,  often  without  foundation,  which 
prejudices  the  reputation  for  minor  honesty  of 
professional  chauffeurs  in  France.  Before  the 
inquiry  had  been  pushed,  the  missing  spectacles 
had  been  discovered  under  a  pillow  in  their 
owner's  bedroom ;  and  before  the  suspicion  had 
reached  the  knowledge  of  the  innocent  youth 
suspected  of  petty  thievery,  their  owner  was 
miles  away  in  his  own  car.  He  had  left  behind, 
however,  a  record  of  his  name  and  address  ;  and 
these  the  youth  was  presently  observed  to  be 
noting  down.  At  the  moment,  he  quietly  ex- 
plained to  the  head  of  his  American  party,  he 
was  not  in  a  position  which  would  quite  justify 
him  in  demanding  satisfaction  of  a  gentleman ; 
but  his  employment  in  his  present  capacity  was 
accidental  and  temporary  —  an  act  of  courtesy 
on  his  part  to  his  employers  and  to  their  clients. 


THE   FRENCH   TEMPERAMENT     161 

Not  only  his  brother  but  his  brother-in-law,  too, 
were  officers  in  the  army.  As  soon  as  his  present 
business  was  finished  he  should  ask  them  to  put 
themselves  in  communication  with  this  gentle- 
man who  had  taken  the  liberty  of  doubting  his 
character.  It  was  probable  that  when  the  situ- 
ation was  explained  the  gentleman  would  take 
the  occasion  to  express  regret.  If  not,  he  would 
have  to  fight  a  duel. 

Whether  this  incident  led  to  anything  further, 
I  have  never  happened  to  know.  It  clearly 
showed  that,  for  all  the  self-control  of  the  man 
when  duty  was  concerned,  the  traditional  anima- 
tion of  French  temper  is  no  fiction.  If  worst 
came  to  worst,  it  meant  that  the  two  Frenchmen 
involved  would  by  and  by  meet  one  another 
somewhere,  in  the  presence  of  friends  and  of 
surgeons,  and  would  cross  swords  or  fire  pistols. 
It  was  highly  improbable  that,  in  any  event, 
either  would  be  more  than  scratched.  The  mere 
fact  of  the  meeting  would  suffice  to  settle  a 
rather  delicate  point  of  honor  to  everybody's 
satisfaction.  The  parties,  thus  introduced  to 
each  other's  notice,  might  perhaps  become  good 
friends.  And,  according  to  the  view  of  such 
matters  now  conventionally  accepted  among 
ourselves,   the  whole   aflfair   would   have   been 

ridiculous. 

u 


162       THE    FRANCE   OF   TODAY 

Again,  there  is  no  reason  why  we  should 
trouble  ourselves  to  consider  whether  our  opinion 
is  wiser  than  theirs  or  not.  Beyond  dispute, 
the  two  opinions  are  widely  different ;  and  until 
we  try  to  take  theirs  we  cannot  pretend  sympa- 
thetically to  understand  what  manner  of  men 
they  are.  In  one  point,  French  and  English 
agree :  whoever  does  not  cherish  a  sense  of  per- 
sonal honor  is  not  exactly  what  either  of  us 
would  call  a  gentleman.  In  past  times  gentle- 
men have  been  apt  to  resent  any  imputation  on 
their  honor  by  challenge  to  mortal  combat.  Dur- 
ing the  nineteenth  century  this  custom  has  dis- 
appeared in  both  England  and  America;  in 
France  it  has  been  so  modified  that  contemporary 
duels  rarely  hurt  anybody.  Wherefore  we  have 
grown  to  suppose  that  with  the  French  the  whole 
thing  has  become  a  mere  pretence  ;  just  as  they 
seem  disposed  to  think  that,  with  us,  the  sense 
of  honor  has  fallen  into  abeyance.  They  are 
mistaken,  of  course ;  but  no  more  so,  I  believe, 
than  we  are.  The  diiference  really  goes  deep  in 
our  national  tempers ;  it  turns  on  the  fact  that 
they  are  at  once  more  searchingly  intelligent 
than  we,  and  far  more  disposed  to  believe  in  the 
importance  of  established  system.  The  only  cir- 
cumstance which  we  take  the  trouble  to  notice 
in  modern  French  duels  is  that  they  seldom  do 


THE   FRENCH   TEMPERAMENT     163 

much  harm ;  the  fact  apparently  uppermost  in  the 
French  mind  is  the  obviously  implied  one  that, 
whether  a  duellist  come  to  any  manner  of  grief 
or  not,  a  man  cannot  take  part  in  a  duel  without 
deliberate  risk  of  his  life.  His  act,  though  prob- 
ably only  conventional,  may  turn  out  to  be  mortal. 
And  even  though,  in  general,  it  happily  prove  a 
mere  formality,  it  involves,  on  the  part  of  all 
concerned,  a  brave  acknowledgment  that  anyone 
pretending  to  membership  of  civilized  society 
must  hold  himself  responsible  for  any  deviation 
from  the  code  of  conduct  which  its  traditions 
prescribe  and  which  its  existence  involves. 

So  far  as  general  behavior  goes,  I  think,  there 
is  little  to  choose  between  us.  Our  neglect  of 
punctilio  during  the  past  century  has  not  resulted 
in  wide  increase  of  misconduct.  Their  insistence 
on  punctilio,  as  was  evident  in  the  incident  of 
the  traveller's  spectacles,  has  not  resulted  in  uni- 
versally faultless  behavior.  And  neither  they 
nor  we  are  so  much  given  as  our  ancestors  were 
to  killing  people  with  whom  we  may  happen  to 
disagree.  We  should  not  be  ourselves,  however, 
if  we  did  not  bluntly  see  only  the  formal  ex- 
terior of  their  insistence  on  regularity  of  system ; 
and  they  would  not  be  what  they  are  if  they  did 
not  find  our  indifference  to  system  reprehensible. 
They  are  far  more  alive  than  we  to  all  that  formal 


164       THE   FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

system  implies.     Which  is  one  chief  reason  why 
they  care  so  much  for  it. 

This  passion  of  the  French  for  system  is  among 
their  most  pervasive  traits  as  a  nation.  The 
considerations  on  which  we  have  just  been  touch- 
ing have  reminded  us  how  animated  their  temper 
remains  when  chance  involves  any  violation  of 
the  respect  due  to  their  persons  or  to  their  dig- 
nity. In  matters  of  this  kind,  any  of  us  can 
easily  sympathize  with  their  impulsive  reaction 
of  feeling,  however  Uttle  we  may  approve  the 
form  which  their  acts  of  resentment  take.  A 
more  puzzling  phase  of  their  emotional  sensi- 
tiveness appears  when  the  exciting  cause  of  it 
is  such  as  we  should  personally  hold  second- 
ary. Anybody  can  understand  why  men  should 
grow  highly  excited  when  personal  dignity  or 
personal  interest  is  concerned.  It  is  harder  to  see 
why  mature  people  need  lose  their  heads  and  their 
tempers  over  abstract  propositions.  Yet  hardly 
anything  is  more  frequent  among  the  French, 
with  their  persistent  attachment  to  intellectual 
candor.  The  circumstance  most  Ukely  to  rouse 
them  into  animated  display  of  feeling  is  any- 
thing which  should  appear  to  threaten,  or  even 
to  call  in  question,  the  validity  or  the  pros- 
perity of  any  system  —  established  or  ideal  — 
sanctioned  by  their  approval. 


THE   FRENCH  TEMPERAMENT     165 

Among  the  general  questions  frequently  dis- 
cussed nowadays  in  France,  for  example,  is  that 
of  divorce.  It  happened  one  day  to  occur  at 
the  house  of  an  intelligent  and  interesting  woman 
who  had  previously  impressed  me  as  remarkable 
for  repose  of  manner.  This  range  of  speculation 
revealed  her  in  a  new  character.  She  became 
almost  dramatically  animated  in  her  intensity. 
For  various  reasons  —  we  were  not  all  of  the 
same  way  of  religious  thinking,  for  one  —  the 
ecclesiastical  aspect  of  divorce  was  not  mentioned. 
The  purely  social  aspect  of  it  was  quite  enough 
to  excite  her  to  an  eloquence  which  I  cannot  pre- 
tend to  reproduce.  The  substance  of  her  dis- 
course, however,  was  too  vivid  to  be  forgotten. 
She  took,  as  her  example,  a  concrete,  though 
apparently  imaginary  case.  Suppose,  she  said, 
that  a  man  marries  a  young  girl  of  irreproachable 
character,  an  ideally  honest  woman.  Their  life 
has  its  hardships  and  its  trials.  The  wife  is  not 
only  burdened  with  her  domestic  dijj:ies  —  the 
monotony  of  her  housekeeping,  the  bearing  and 
the  care  of  her  children  ;  as  an  honest  woman 
she  is  the  constant  counsellor  of  her  husband  in 
the  questions  which  perplex  his  own  career  and 
his  conduct  of  the  family  fortunes.  The  years 
pass.  The  penalty  of  her  devotion  to  duty  is  that 
it  must  leave  its  trace  on  the  charms  of  her  per- 


166       THE   FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

son.  She  is  no  longer  young,  and  she  looks  her 
age.  Her  husband,  meanwhile,  is  not  yet  so  old 
as  to  be  insensible  to  the  allurements  of  youth. 
A  young  girl,  somewhat  older  than  his  daughter, 
becomes  a  member  of  the  household,  in  the  char- 
acter of  governess.  The  honest  wife  admits  her 
without  suspicion  to  the  foyer  —  the  family 
circle.  The  husband  cannot  fail  to  find  her  ap- 
pearance more  attractive  than  that  of  his  elderly 
mate.  The  girl  proves  to  be  of  an  intriguing 
disposition.  Well,  that  sort  of  thing  is  bad 
enough  at  best ;  but  under  the  time-honored  sys- 
tem of  marriage,  the  governess  of  intriguing  dis- 
position can  be  sent  away,  and  —  even  if  the 
husband  prove  so  errant  as  not  to  relinquish  his 
interest  in  her  —  at  least  the  foyer  is  safe.  What 
is  more,  this  unlucky  experience  will  have  taught 
the  wife  to  prevent  such  domestic  misadventure 
in  future. 

But  suppose  such  liberty  of  divorce  as  your 
self-styled  reformers  seem  to  urge.  They  would 
stop  at  nothing  short  of  absolute  freedom  in  the 
matter  of  elective  affinities ;  that  needs  no  dis- 
cussion. The  governess  of  intriguing  disposition 
will  be  all  smiles  for  the  fatuous  husband,  and  all 
smiles  at  the  fading  wife  —  the  fading  of  whose 
charms  may  well  be  hastened  by  such  vexation. 
The  poor  woman  will  weep  in  secret,  which  will 


THE   FRENCH   TEMPERAMENT     167 

be  unbecoming.  She  may  have  the  artlessness  to 
imitate  some  pretty  detail  of  the  governess's  cos- 
tume, which  will  evidently  make  her  look  ridicu- 
lous. She  may  so  far  forget  herself  as  to  complain, 
or  even  to  plead ;  which  will  render  her  husband 
still  more  sensible  of  the  coy  charms  of  the  gov- 
erness with  a  turn  for  intrigue.  And  meanwhile 
this  demure  young  person  will  be  far  too  intelli- 
gent to  rate  her  charms  at  anything  less  than  their 
full  value  —  legitimate  marriage.  One  can  see 
the  whole  pathetic  story  at  a  glance.  It  is  need- 
less to  dwell  on  details.  The  infatuated  husband 
applies  for  divorce.  As  a  matter  of  course,  he 
obtains  it ;  to  deny  it  would  seem  to  the  authori- 
ties a  tyrannical  denial  of  their  cherished  principle 
of  liberty  in  marriage  ;  according  to  them,  mar- 
riage should  subsist  only  so  long  as  it  remains 
agreeable  to  both  parties  concerned.  The  devoted 
wife,  prematurely  old  from  suffering  and  from  her 
unfailing  attention  to  domestic  duty,  is  sent  to 
live  and  die  as  she  may  on  what  may  chance  to  be 
left  of  her  inconsiderable  dowry.  The  triumphant 
governess  of  an  intriguing  turn  takes  her  place  at 
the  foyer,  as  its  duly  wedded  mistress.  A  new 
family  succeeds  the  old  one,  whose  interests  are 
thus  utterly  ruined.  Anyone  can  see  that  such 
incidents  must  lead  straight  to  social  chaos. 
It  is  possible  that  the  vividness  of  my  friend's 


168       THE   PRANCE  OF  TODAY 

narration  has  betrayed  me  into  some  exaggera- 
tion of  her  hypothetical  case.  If  so,  it  is  a  tribute 
to  the  art  of  her  improvised  discourse.  For  her 
story  carried  one  with  it  unresisting.  She  did 
not  pretend  that  it  was  true ;  but  it  was  intel- 
lectually conceivable,  to  the  most  eloquent  de- 
tail, and  each  new  detail  made  it  more  like  a 
reality.  What  is  more,  she  appeared  to  feel  that 
she  was  presenting  to  us  a  pathetic  and  valid 
argument  in  favor  of  the  orthodox  principles  of 
marriage. 

Of  itself,  no  doubt,  this  httle  incident  had 
no  importance.  Very  likely  it  was  forgotten 
in  an  hour  by  everyone  else  who  happened  to 
be  present  at  the  tea-table  thereby  enlivened. 
It  has  lingered  in  my  memory  not  because  it 
was  exceptional,  but  for  the  contrary  reason 
that  it  was  so  deeply,  so  typically  French.  Else- 
where than  in  France,  such  a  discussion,  at  least 
under  just  these  circumstances,  would  have 
lacked,  I  think,  several  of  its  salient  character- 
istics. Throughout  her  vivid  statement  of  an 
imaginary  case  this  Frenchwoman  was  intensely, 
contagiously  serious.  She  made  one  feel  as  if 
a  great  principle  were  really  at  stake ;  as  if  the 
occasion  forbade  any  manner  of  levity ;  as  if 
what  we  thought,  when  she  had  finished,  would 
affect  the  future  of  society  and  of  morals.     It 


THE   FRENCH   TEMPERAMENT     169 

was  just  such  a  tirade  as  we  have  been  accustomed 
to  think  pieces  of  stage  convention  in  the  comedies 
of  the  younger  Dumas.  Again,  her  views  con- 
cerning the  subject  in  dispute  defined  themselves 
with  the  utmost  precision.  Not  an  outhne  was 
blurred,  not  a  detail  was  neglected ;  you  felt  as 
if  you  had  been  privileged  to  look  through  an 
intellectual  microscope  inconceivably  delicate  in 
adjustment.  Incidentally,  too,  her  intellectual 
candor  was  uncompromising ;  she  frankly  recog- 
nized and  plainly  set  forth  a  range  of  human 
error  which  the  custom,  and  indeed  the  impulse, 
of  an  English  or  an  American  woman  in  similar 
circumstances  would  have  disposed  her  to  ignore 
or  to  veil.  The  French  state  of  mind  in  this 
matter  has  no  shade  of  conscious  effrontery; 
neither  has  the  English  or  American  any  con- 
scious tinge  of  hypocrisy.  There  is  a  deep  dif- 
ference, however,  between  people,  like  ourselves, 
comfortably  disposed  to  believe  that  things  are 
as  they  ought  to  be  until  the  contrary  is  shown, 
and  people,  like  the  French,  who  frankly  recog- 
nize that  things  are  as  they  are  —  in  which  truth 
they  find  no  reason  for  pretending  things  as  they 
are  to  be  what  they  ought  to  be.  The  formal 
conventions  of  life  are  in  many  respects  similar 
with  us  and  with  them.  The  difference  is  that 
we  of  English  habit,  never  prying  beneath  the 


170       THE   FRANCE  OF  TODAY 

conventions,  do  not  value  them  merely  as  con- 
ventions, and  hardly  appreciate  their  full  impor- 
tance except  in  cases  where  we  complacently 
find  them  to  coincide  with  actuality.  The  French, 
on  the  other  hand,  look  beneath  conventions  with 
uncompromising  keenness,  and  candidly  admit 
what  they  discern  there.  This,  on  the  whole, 
they  most  honestly  regard  as  far  too  dangerous 
not  to  be  repressed  by  all  imaginable  insistence 
on  conventional  system.  Conventions  to  them 
are  not  precisely  truths,  but  neither  are  they 
pretences.  They  are  the  fortifications  of  so- 
ciety, neglected  or  abandoned  only  at  the  risk  of 
social  peril.  In  which  consideration  we  may  find 
something  to  explain  my  friend's  impassioned 
animation  when  she  stated  her  extreme  uncom- 
promising conclusions  about  the  question  of 
divorce. 

Whatever  she  discerned  was  vividly  distinct ; 
the  simile  of  the  microscope  comes  to  mind 
again.  You  felt  amazed  at  the  precision  of  her 
perception  and  at  the  intensity  with  which  she 
concentrated  her  powers  on  the  task.  But,  as 
with  the  microscope, — or  with  a  telescope,  either, 
if  the  comparison  seem  at  all  invidious,  —  the  field 
of  observation  was  rigidly  defined.  You  could 
not  have  grasped  what  lay  within  it  unless,  for 
the  moment,  you  had  neglected  what  lay  outside. 


THE   FRENCH   TEMPERAMENT     171 

The  very  limitation  of  her  sketch  enabled  her  to 
make  it  masterly.  At  the  same  time  this  limita- 
tion prevented  it  from  being  comprehensive.  The 
moment  you  stopped  to  consider  her  imaginary 
case,  you  could  see  that  there  was  nothing  to 
prove  it  typical,  any  more  than  there  would 
have  been  if  one  who  should  wish  to  generalize 
about  the  heavens  should  base  his  reasoning  on 
what  he  saw  through  a  telescope  directed  to  some 
single  point  thereof,  undisturbed  by  the  swimming 
passage  of  planets.  And  yet  my  friend  would 
not  have  been  so  admirably  French  as  she  was, 
if  she  had  not  assumed  her  hypothesis  to  be 
comprehensive,  and  if  the  conclusion  she  drew 
from  it  had  not  appeared  to  her,  at  the  moment, 
absolutely,  universally,  conclusively  true. 

For,  as  you  come  to  know  the  French,  you 
grow  to  feel  that  no  quaUty  is  more  deeply  char- 
acteristic than  their  passionate  devotion  to  what,  in 
the  widest  sense  of  the  word,  we  may  call  philoso- 
phy. The  trait  in  question,  which  has  its  origin 
in  an  intellectual  activity  far  beyond  our  habitual 
conception,  involves  immense  divergence  of  opin- 
ion and  of  conviction.  As  every  one  knows,  there 
has  never  been  a  people  less  disposed  than  these 
same  French  to  remain  contentedly  unanimous. 
And  their  uncompromising  love  for  precision  of 
phrase  has  long  made  the  term   ^*  philosophy " 


172      THE  FRANCE  OF  TODAY 

suggest,  at  least  among  themselves,  something 
not  at  peace  with  dogmatic  religion.  Philosophy, 
as  I  conceive  it  at  this  moment,  embraces  such 
cosmic  and  social  conceptions  as  those  to  which 
they  jthus  seem  generally  to  confine  it;  it  em- 
braces as  well,  however,  the  scholastic  definition 
of  philosophy  as  the  handmaiden  of  theology. 
The  real  distinction  between  devotion  to  phi- 
losophy like  theirs  and  our  habitual  neglect  of 
it  Ues  in  the  fact  that  a  Frenchman  is  rarely 
content  until  he  has  reduced  his  yiews  of  Ufe 
to  a  system,  and  that,  so  long  as  afFaSTn  this 
wicked  world  proceed  with  reasonable  prosper- 
ity, we  see  no  particular  reason  why  we  should 
trouble  ourselves  to  think  about  them.  We  are 
content  with  commonplace,  with  common  sense; 
the  French  are  passionately,  alertly  eager  to 
understand,  to  explain,  to  control. 

Accordingly,  whatever  the  shade  of  your 
French  friend's  opinion,  you  shall  seek  far  for 
a  Frenchman  in  whose  heart  two  assumptions  are 
not  so  rooted  that  they  seem  to  him,  as  a  matter 
of  course,  sanctioned  by  all  the  force  of  passion- 
ate emotion.  The  first  is  that  life,  in  all  its  be- 
wildering complexity,  can  be  generaUzed.  Every 
imaginable  phase  of  it  may  be  simpUfied  if  we 
will,  until  we  can  perceive  it  clearly,  firmly, 
finally,  in  all  the  precision  of  fixed,  immutable 


THE   FRENCH   TEMPERAMENT     173 

system.  How  deeply  this  conviction  is  rooted  in 
the  temper  of  the  French  is  evident  from  the  sub- 
stantial conservatism  which  underlies  all  the  vag- 
rant radicalism  of  their  utterance  in  recent  years. 
It  is  implied  in  their  intense  devotion  to  system 
in  such  external  matters  as  those  which  we  have 
considered  together  —  the  structure  of  their  uni- 
versities, their  acceptance  of  national  centraliza- 
tion, and  the  orderliness  of  their  social  structure. 
It  appears  even  in  that  less  obvious  trait  of  their 
character  touched  on  when  we  began  our  present 
attempt  to  understand  them  more  intimately. 
Their  personal  reticence,  in  its  marked  contrast 
to  their  philosophic  candor,  implies,  as  we  come 
to  appreciate  it  sympathetically,  their  devotion  to 
system.  Even  in  the  most  friendly  intercourse, 
they  regard  the  vagaries  of  individual  temper  as 
subordinate  to  the  larger  truths,  the  general  prin- 
ciples, which  we  must  recognize  and  support  as 
the  true  guides  of  life.  The  assumption  that 
everything  can  be  generalized  and  reduced  to 
system  lies  at  the  very  root  of  their  emotional 
existence. 

Along  with  this  lies  a  second  assumption, 
quite  as  dear  to  them :  even  though  fact  be 
unwelcome,  they  ardently  believe  that  you 
must  never  shrink  from  acknowledging  it. 
In   this  philosophic    conviction  there   is   noth* 


174       THE   FRANCE   OF   TODAY 

ing  at  all  to  preclude  the  polite  vagaries  of 
social  amenity.  As  is  the  case  with  any  race 
where  society  has  persisted  long  enough  to 
make  the  inconveniences  of  earthly  accident 
habitual,  their  respect  for  casuistry  is  instinctive  ; 
and  their  appreciation  of  the  rudeness  inseparable 
from  excessive  personal  candor,  in  word  or  in  act, 
is  keen.  The  very  fact  that  things  are  not  always 
what  they  seem,  however,  is  one  to  be  candidly 
admitted.  To  see  things  as  they  are,  before  we 
can  reduce  them  to  system,  is  evidently  a  prime 
duty  of  intelligence.  In  this  passion  for  fact, 
taken  together  with  their  passion  for  system,  we 
may  find,  I  think,  an  explanation  of  what  we  have 
been  apt  to  feel  the  bewildering  paradox  of  their 
national  character. 

For  when  we  come  to  consider  together  these 
two  almost  equally  ardent  philosophic  impulses, 
we  cannot  long  avoid  perceiving  that  they  are 
contradictory.  What  is  true  concerning  fact  and 
system  throughout  human  experience  remains 
true  as  ever  in  France,  for  all  the  efforts  of  the 
French  to  reconcile  them.  No  philosophical 
formula  was  ever  so  final  as  to  include  all  con- 
ceivable fact.  Unforeseen  facts  occur  every- 
where. Radium,  for  instance,  seems  at  this 
moment  to  be  irradiating  unexplored  regions 
among  the  placid    generalizations    of   physical 


THE   FRENCH   TEMPERAMENT     175 

science.  And  you  cannot  forever  protect  prin- 
ciples by  the  conventional  assertion  that  an  ex- 
ception only  proves  the  rule.  For  the  essence  of 
an  ideal  rule  is  that  it  shall  be  unexceptionable. 

Now,  when  facts  fail  to  agree  with  systems, 
you  may  take  one  of  three  distinct  courses,  be- 
sides this  makeshift  one  of  saying  that  the  in- 
trusive facts  are  only  what  everybody  ought  to 
expect ;  and  French  temper,  with  its  impulsive 
love  of  precision,  is  even  more  disposed  than  ours 
to  take  one  of  the  three.  Either  you  may  at- 
tempt forcibly  to  reduce  fact  to  system ;  or  you 
may  virtually  ignore  fact,  admitting  it,  if  you  like, 
but  treating  it  as  negligible;  or,  if  fact  prove  too 
stubborn,  the  final  course  open  to  you  is  to  re- 
form your  system,  in  order  to  make  it  correspond 
with  fact.  If  your  philosophic  impulse  persist, 
you  must  almost  certainly  take  one  of  these 
courses  in  the  end.  Which  you  shall  take  in 
any  given  case  depends  on  extremely  compli- 
cated conditions,  among  others  on  the  incalcu- 
lable peculiarities  and  vagaries  of  your  individual 
temperament.  Which  any  Frenchman  will  take, 
it  is  hard  to  predict.  The  one  sure  thing  is  that, 
when  his  course  is  once  chosen,  he  will  take  it 
so  fervently  that  anyone  who  takes  another  will 
seem  to  him  an  enemy. 

To  illustrate  what   I   mean,  I   may  perhaps 


176       THE   FRANCE   OF   TODAY 

touch  on  a  matter  which,  as  the  whole  world 
knows,  was  deeply  disturbing  every  comer  of 
French  society  at  the  time  when  I  was  in 
France.  It  still  involved  such  intense  feeling 
that  one  could  not  tactfully  speak  of  it.  All 
the  more,  one  felt  it  close  to  the  surface  of 
emotion  ever5rwhere ;  and  one  felt,  as  well,  that 
people  of  quite  equal  honesty  —  equally  good 
gentlemen,  I  mean,  in  our  best  sense  of  the 
word  —  were  to  be  found  on  both  sides.  From 
our  present  point  of  view,  this  was  the  most 
interesting  phase  of  it.  I  refer,  of  course,  to 
the  Dreyfus  affair.  Amid  all  its  confusion,  two 
facts  remained  clear:  one  was  that  everybody, 
having  come  to  his  own  conclusion  about  it,  was 
honestly  convinced  that  everybody  who  had  come 
to  a  different  conclusion  was  reprehensible ;  the 
other  was  that  no  foreign  visitor,  whatever  his 
personal  sympathy,  could  quite  admit  this  to 
be  the  case. 

For  the  dispute  really  turned,  I  think,  not 
on  questions  of  fact,  but  on  one  of  principle. 
Everybody  admitted  that  the  established  system 
of  law,  having  regularly  accepted  certain  state- 
ments of  fact,  had  proceeded  to  condemn  an 
individual  who  stoutly  asserted  his  innocence. 
Everybody  admitted  that  some  contrary  and 
unofficial  statements  of  f^ct  had  subsequently 


THE   FRENCH   TEMPERAMENT     177 

brought  the  justice  of  his  sentence  into  question. 
In  other  words,  it  was  plain  that  the  regular 
working  of  a  system  did  not  agree  with  an 
alleged  state  of  fact.  What  is  more,  efforts  to 
suppress  the  alleged  facts  became  out  of  the 
question.  One  of  two  courses  must  be  chosen  : 
Either  the  incompatible  facts  must  be  denied 
by  the  supporters  of  the  system,  very  much  as 
the  Christian  Scientists  of  America  now  deny 
malady,  under  the  convenient  name  of  "error," 
or  else  the  system  itself  must  be  exposed  to  hos- 
tile scrutiny.  The  true  question  was  whether 
the  case  should  be  reopened  after  sentence  had 
been  duly  passed. 

This  seems  to  me  the  crucial  point.  The  com- 
plications which  ensued  were  embittered  by  contro- 
versy, until  the  mutual  sentiments  of  Frenchmen 
grew  as  rancorous  as  those  of  Americans  were 
during  our  Civil  War  of  forty  years  ago.  The 
reason  for  this  animosity  seems  to  me  that  both 
sides,  with  eager  French  love  for  logical  sys- 
tem, regarded  the  question  as  an  abstract  one. 
To  each  it  turned  on  unquestioning  belief  that 
a  familiar  legal  maxim  ought  at  any  cost  to  be 
carried  to  its  extreme  conclusion.  The  difference 
between  the  parties  was  that,  while  both  would 
probably  have  admitted  both  maxims,  one  held 
that  the  fundamental  principle  of  public  conduct 

12 


178       THE   FRANCE  OF  TODAY 

is  Fiat  justitia^  mat  coelum^  and  the  other  that  it 
is  rather  De  minimis  non  curat  lex.  At  bottom, 
I  think,  there  were  these  two  distinct  impulses, 
neither  quite  precisely  formulated,  and  both  turn- 
ing not  only  on  political  conviction  and  on  social 
limitation,  but  also  on  pecuUarities  of  individual 
temperament.  One  sort  of  man  assumes,  as  a 
matter  of  course,  that  the  rights  of  the  individual 
should  be  maintained  at  all  hazard,  no  matter 
what  happens  to  institutions.  Another  sort  of 
man  believes  institutions  so  needful  for  the  wel- 
fare of  society  that  occasional  vn'ong  to  an  indi- 
vidual—  even  though  in  itself  deplorable  —  is 
of  no  importance  in  comparison  with  loyal  main- 
tenance of  the  system  which  has  had  the  misfor- 
tune to  inflict  it.  When  a  conflict  between  these 
contradictory  assumptions  takes  place,  it  is  sure 
to  be  violent  anywhere. 

More  than  anywhere  else  in  France.  The  dis- 
pute once  started,  everyone  seemed  impelled  to 
consider  it  much  as  my  French  friend,  at  whom 
we  glanced  a  little  while  ago,  considered  the 
question  of  divorce.  The  fundamental  position 
was  assumed  to  be  axiomatic,  morally  beyond 
dispute,  sacred.  Facts  which  seemed  to  justify 
the  position  —  whether  real  or  imaginary,  or  based 
on  evidence,  on  hearsay,  or  on  scandal  —  were 
eagerly  pounced  on.     Principle  and  facts  were 


THE   FRENCH   TEMPERAMENT     179 

used  in  impassioned  processes  of  logical  reason- 
ing. Whatever  this  reasoning  might  lead  to  — 
including  the  villainy  of  anyone  who  did  not 
agree  with  it  —  became  an  object  of  faith.  The 
actual  point  in  dispute,  at  least  as  I  apprehend 
it,  was  quite  lost  from  sight.  Yet,  in  final 
analysis,  you  could  always  reduce  it  to  the  ques- 
tion of  whether  the  case  ought  to  have  been  re- 
opened. People  whose  faith  in  institutions  was 
paramount  thought  not ;  to  reopen  it  would  be 
to  question,  to  weaken  the  authority  of  the  law, 
the  army,  the  Church.  In  any  given  case,  of 
course,  the  Church,  the  army,  or  the  law  might 
err;  nothing  on  earth  is  free  from  danger  of 
error.  But  the  less  we  dwell  on  this,  and  the 
more  we  insist  on  the  benefits  we  derive  from 
such  institutions,  and  on  how  fatally  the  weaken- 
ing of  them  might  injure  civilization,  the  better 
for  everybody.  In  comparison  with  the  stability 
of  society,  the  interests  of  any  individual  are 
negligible.  De  minimis  non  curat  lex.  In  con- 
tradiction to  this  view,  people  who  were  disposed 
to  care  more  for  individuals  than  for  institutions 
held  that  the  only  right  course  was  to  scrutinize 
afresh  every  fact  in  the  case,  old  and  new.  If 
institutions  had  involved  injustice  to  anybody, 
so  much  the  worse  for  institutions.  Fiat  justitia^ 
mat  coelum. 


180       THE   FRANCE   OF   TODAY 

Of  course,  there  were  immense  complications. 
Dogmatic  attachment  to  different  systems  of 
rehgion  or  of  pohtics  entered  into  the  matter. 
CathoHcs  and  Jews,  Radicals  and  Reactionaries, 
naturally  arrayed  themselves  against  each  other, 
and  found  in  the  fact  fresh  warrant  for  their  be- 
lief that  their  opponents  were  villainous.  And 
everybody  was  most  bitter  of  all  against  people 
who  on  general  principles  should  have  taken  his 
side,  and  who,  whatever  their  reason,  took  the 
opposite.  For,  as  we  have  seen,  the  choice  of 
sides  often  turned  on  questions  of  individual 
temperament.  Neutrality  became  impossible, 
until  even  an  attempt,  like  ours,  to  consider  the 
matter  impartially,  in  distant  perspective,  may 
probably  seem  partisan  to  everybody  concerned. 
In  any  event,  if  it  should  be  brought  to  their  at- 
tention, it  would  seem  immensely  incomplete  — 
neglecting  innumerable  considerations  essential 
to  valid  opinion  concerning  this  complicated 
matter.  Had  our  object  been  to  arrive  at  any 
conclusion  about  the  case,  or  even  to  state  the 
facts  plainly,  we  should  certainly  have  had  to  con- 
sider it  with  more  deliberation.  Already,  how- 
ever, we  have  done  enough,  I  think,  for  our  present 
purpose.  This  was  only  to  point  out  some  deep 
characteristics  of  French  temperament.  From 
the  very  moment  when  the  case  was  first  brought 


THE   FRENCH   TEMPERAMENT     181 

forward,  the  French  took  sides,  with  precision, 
with  logic,  and  with  intense  animosity.  Nothing 
in  their  recent  history  can  better  illustrate  their 
characteristics  when  they  are  brought  face  to  face 
with  a  situation  where — in  any  sense  of  the  terms 
—  system  and  fact  are  shown  to  be  so  far  at  odds 
that  readjustment  is  needful.  They  passionately 
love  system ;  their  alertness  of  intelligence  makes 
them  passionately  fond  of  reasoning;  they  passion- 
ately desire  to  philosophize  everything  into  order ; 
yet  all  the  while  they  insist  with  equal  passion  on 
recognizing  fact.  When  fact  and  system  clash, 
accordingly,  the  French  are  stirred  to  a  degree 
which  at  once  intensifies  and  unduly  concentrates 
their  processes  of  reasoning.  And  thus  arise, 
throughout  the  course  of  their  history,  their 
tragic  antagonisms  of  conviction. 

For  a  Frenchman  would  be  something  more, 
or  something  less,  than  characteristically  French, 
if  at  any  given  moment  his  convictions  on  any 
subject  in  serious  dispute  had  not  an  intensity 
rare  among  other  peoples.  Whatever  the  ques- 
tion, his  first  impulse  is  to  define  his  views  of  it. 
As  a  matter  of  conscience,  his  efforts  to  define 
them  will  not  rest  until  they  have  resulted  in 
a  precision  of  which  the  very  clearness  involves 
limitation.  If  this  were  not  the  case,  he  could 
hardly  be  true  to  himself;  if  a  bit  untrue  to  him- 


182       THE  FRANCE   OF   TODAY 

self,  if  not  unflinching  in  his  intellectual  candor, 
he  could  not  be  an  honest  man.  Almost  un- 
knowingly, then,  he  proceeds  to  make  for  himself 
a  new  little  logical  system.  He  honestly  believes 
in  it,  at  least  for  the  while.  He  cherishes  it,  even 
to  its  remote  implications,  not  only  with  instinc- 
tive devotion  to  his  principles,  but  also  with  some 
such  jealousy  as  that  with  which  creative  artists 
or  parents  cherish  superficially  unwinsome  off- 
spring. At  any  given  moment  he  could  not  be 
himself  if  he  were  not  uncompromising.  To 
tolerate  convictions  or  opinions  contrary  to  his 
own  would  be  to  yield  himself  contemptibly  to 
a  contradiction  of  right  and  of  truth,  surely  mis- 
chievous and  often  wicked. 

If  I  have  made  myself  clear,  I  have  perhaps 
indicated  how  some  of  the  most  obvious  peculi- 
arities of  the  French,  often  puzzling  to  a  foreigner, 
and  surely  less  menacing  to  national  strength  than 
a  foreigner  would  imagine,  spring  from  an  excess 
of  their  national  virtue  —  intellectual  candor.  As 
individuals  or  as  partisans  they  never  quite  ap- 
preciate the  limitation,  as  distinguished  from  the 
precision,  of  their  opinions  and  their  convictions. 
The  results  of  this  are  familiar  to  everybody. 
Superficially  they  take  the  form  of  demonstra- 
tions, amusing  or  alarming  to  foreign  spectators, 
as  the  case  may  be.      During  the  winter  when  T 


THE   FRENCH   TEMPERAMENT     183 

was  in  Paris,  for  example,  the  teacher  of  history 
at  a  secondary  school  gave  expression  to  some 
opinion  about  Jeanne  d'Arc  which  offended  the 
prejudices  of  his  pupils,  boys  sixteen  or  eighteen 
years  old.  These  youths  accordingly  hooted  down 
his  lectures,  refused  to  attend  his  classes,  and  as- 
sembling in  public  places  indulged  themselves  in 
comically  eloquent  tributes  to  the  character  of  the 
Maid  of  Orleans.  This  particular  incident,  I  be- 
lieve, was  settled  by  transferring  the  obnoxious 
schoolmaster  to  an  institution  of  learning  where 
the  boys  were  more  disposed  to  agree  with  his 
political  bias  ;  but  when  the  characteristics  dis- 
played by  these  rebellious  youths  show  them- 
selves more  profoundly  among  their  elders,  the 
matter  cannot  be  so  easily  disposed  of  Through- 
out French  history  they  have  involved  terrible 
mutual  misapprehensions  on  the  part  of  men 
equally  honest  and  equally  admirable.  More 
than  anything  else,  I  think,  they  have  led  to 
those  fatally  uncompromising  dissensions  which 
again  and  again  have  prevented  tolerant  co- 
operation at  crucial  moments.  The  deepest  weak- 
ness of  the  French  as  a  people  seems  to  be  their 
inability  to  take  confidently  united  action.  They 
know  one  another  better  than  they  can  know  any 
foreigners.  That  is  one  reason  why  their  history 
has  taken  such  a  course  that  an  English  writer, 


184       THE  FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

who  knows  them  well,  has  lately  declared,  in  dis* 
cussing  their  republican  doctrine  of  fraternity, 
that  no  Frenchman  can  ever  hate  a  foreigner 
quite  so  intensely  as  he  hates  Frenchmen  of  othei 
opinions  than  his  own. 

At  a  French  dinner-party  I  happened  to  hear 
a  phrase  which,  in  this  connection,  seems  to  me 
deeply  significant.  It  was  during  those  dis* 
turbances  about  Jeanne  d'Arc  indulged  in  bj 
schoolboys.  Their  master  was  believed  to  hav< 
intimated  that,  according  to  his  reading  of  th(; 
evidence  —  duly  confirmed  by  the  decree  of  thi 
ecclesiastical  court  which  sent  her  to  the  stake 
—  her  character  left  something  to  be  desired. 
His  pupils,  when  you  began  to  sift  their  elo- 
quence, appeared  to  maintain  —  in  accordance 
with  the  decree  of  the  equally  regular  ecclesiasti- 
cal court  which  rehabilitated  her  memory  —  that 
she  was  blameless  to  the  point  of  beatitude. 
The  question  gave  rise  to  animated,  though 
friendly,  debate  among  a  company  of  French 
people  assembled  at  table.  Everybody  there 
was  alertly  intelligent,  everybody  knew  his  his- 
tory with  surprising  accuracy,  everybody  took 
eager  interest  in  the  somewhat  academic  contro- 
versy ;  and  the  range  of  opinion  extended  from  not 
guilty,  through  not  proven,  to  guilty.  In  the 
midst  of  the  dispute  one  of  the  company  gave 


THE   FRENCH   TEMPERAMENT     185 

utterance  to  a  principle  apparently  accepted  as 
axiomatic  by  everybody  present:  — "//  riy  a 
qu'une  veritey'  he  exclaimed :  "  There  is  only  one 
truth " ;  —  a  fact  is  a  fact,  or  it  is  not ;  that  is 
the  whole  story. 

Everybody  assented  ;  and  the  discussion  went 
on,  so  far  as  I  remember,  to  no  definite  conclusion. 
For  my  part,  1  did  not  venture  to  interpose.  Yet 
I  felt  at  the  moment,  as  I  have  felt  ever  since,  that 
no  incident  could  better  have  illustrated  at  once 
the  uncompromising  intellectual  candor  of  the 
French,  and  the  most  insidious  limitation  of  it. 

Take,  for  instance,  the  case  then  in  dispute, 
that  of  Jeanne  d'Arc.  Concerning  her  actual 
conduct  in  this  world,  of  course,  the  aphorism 
was  completely  true.  Either  she  was  spotless, 
or  she  was  not ;  and  by  carefully  studying  the 
evidence  about  her  we  may  very  likely  reach, 
in  the  end,  a  pretty  substantial  opinion,  one  way 
or  the  other.  But  suppose  for  the  moment  that 
the  weight  of  the  evidence  should  prove  to  be 
against  her;  suppose  that,  as  a  matter  of  his- 
tory, we  were  forced  to  admit  her  frailty.  That 
would  doubtless  be  a  truth ;  and  in  her  own  time 
it  might  have  been  held  pretty  comprehensive. 
Nowadays,  however,  the  case  is  different.  It 
will  soon  be  five  hundred  years  since  she  gave 
up  the  ghost  in  the   market-place   of  Rouen. 


186       THE  FRANCE  OF  TODAY 

Throughout  these  five  centuries  a  crescent  tradi- 
tion—  a  legend,  if  you  will  —  has  consecrated 
her  memory.  Even  though  she  were  proved  in 
fact  to  have  been  worse  than  scandal  ever  pre- 
tended, nothing  could  prevent  the  equal  truth 
that  thousands  and  thousands  of  her  countrymen 
have  lived  and  died  in  the  faith  that  she  was  the 
pure  and  inspired  savior  of  France.  But  for 
that  tradition,  she  might  have  been  untainted  as 
driven  snow,  and  yet  today  be  remembered  only 
as  a  picturesquely  eccentric  soldier.  That  tradi- 
tion itself,  even  if  they  could  demonstrate  that 
she  was  no  better  than  the  dregs  of  a  mediaeval 
gutter,  is  a  fact  which  must  still  be  reckoned 
with.  There  are  at  least  two  truths  about  Jeanne 
d'Are  —  the  truth  of  history  and  the  truth  of 
tradition.  If  they  coincide,  so  much  the  better. 
If  they  prove  hopelessly  at  odds,  that  is  no 
reason  why  we  should  not  reverence  her  tradi- 
tional memory  ;  for  this  consecrated  truth  is  less 
concerned  with  what  she  actually  was  than  with 
what  generations  of  posterity  have  fervently  be- 
lieved her  to  be. 

It  is  the  same  at  home.  On  Boston  Com- 
mon there  is  a  monument  in  honor  of  the  vic- 
tims of  the  Boston  Massacre,  a  few  years  before 
the  American  Revolution.  Some  of  our  note- 
worthy authorities  assert  that  they  were  drunken 


THE  FRENCH   TEMPERAMENT    187 

rowdies.  It  is  equally  true  that  local  tradition 
has  long  since  come  to  believe  that  they  were 
patriots  who  deliberately  sacrificed  their  lives  for 
the  principle  of  liberty.  If  we  take  that  monu- 
ment as  a  tribute  to  the  actual  men  whose  names 
are  carved  on  it,  we  might  as  well  close  our 
police  courts.  If  we  take  it  as  an  assertion  of  our 
popular  tradition  that  they  were  devoted  to  what 
they  believed  the  highest  truth,  it  must  always 
remain  reverend.  There  is  more  than  one  phase 
of  truth,  after  all ;  and  the  most  deeply  signifi- 
cant, the  most  lasting,  the  most  pregnant,  is  not 
always  that  of  mere  reality.  Oftener,  I  grow  to 
feel,  it  is  that  of  the  ideal  to  which  some  fleeting 
reality  —  however  sordid  —  has  given  inspiring 
and  deathless  life. 

Such  a  distinction  as  this  any  thoughtful 
Frenchman  would  be  apt  to  admit.  Distinc- 
tions, even  when  not  very  fine,  appeal  to  tempers 
so  fond  of  exactness  as  that  of  the  French.  At 
the  same  time  the  sort  of  distinction  now,  in 
our  minds  would  hardly  occur  to  them  spontane- 
ously. Their  instinctive,  impulsive  love  of  sys- 
tem would  prevent  them  from  feeling  its  force 
until  they  had  carefully  considered  it.  There  is 
something  alluring  in  that  phrase,  to  which  the 
whole  disputing  company  assented  —  //  rCy  a 
qu'une  verite.     Truth  is  single ;  it  must  forever 


188       THE   FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

remain  immutable,  unqualified.  Their  system  of 
the  eternities  is  based  on  this  axiom.  To  ques- 
tion it  would  be  preposterous  —  until  you  stop 
to  think. 

And  meanwhile,  let  truth  be  single  as  you 
please,  and  let  each  one  of  us,  with  all  the  candor 
in  the  world,  set  himself  the  task  of  learning  it ; 
and  you  shall  always  find  human  beings  at  odds. 
The  more  alike  they  are  in  fundamental  charac- 
ter, the  more  sharp  their  dissensions  must  be,  and 
the  more  intolerant  they  must  be  of  one  another. 
Let  them  love  system  and  love  fact,  as  the 
French  do.  Let  them  be  beset  by  the  tempta- 
tion to  admit  fact  only  in  forms  which  harmonize 
with  system.  Let  them  grow  to  maturity  each 
amid  the  intense  traditions  of  his  class  and  kind. 
Let  each,  as  well,  be  conditioned  by  the  acci- 
dental fact  of  the  temper,  the  character,  the  dis- 
position, with  which  he  happens  to  have  come 
into  the  world.  And  the  world  he  must  live 
in  must  be,  fi'om  beginning  to  end,  a  world  of 
insoluble  discord. 

And  yet,  for  all  these  dissensions  which  at 
once  spring  from  their  individualities  and  inten- 
sify them,  you  would  never  understand  the  tem- 
per of  the  French  if  you  stopped  here.  The 
excess,  the  fineness,  the  limitations  of  their 
strongest  virtues,  involve  them  in  constant  un- 


THE   FRENCH   TEMPERAMENT     189 

rest,  passionately  resentful  of  their  own  images 
in  the  likeness  of  their  nearest  neighbors.  At  the 
same  time  there  are  enduring  impulses  in  which 
they  remain  unanimous.  This  tendency  you  can 
feel  in  some  of  the  phases  of  their  character  at 
which  we  have  already  glanced.  The  very  fact 
of  their  school-boy  demonstrations  reveals  their 
eager  response  to  the  appeal  of  a  common  senti- 
ment. In  Asia,  they  tell  me,  French  mission- 
aries and  the  most  radical  of  French  diplomatists 
mutually  ignore  everything  but  the  fact  that 
both  are  loyal  Frenchmen.  And  when  a  com- 
mon sentiment  proves  to  be  broadly,  deeply, 
lastingly  human,  it  springs  to  life  with  wonderful 
strength  and  tenderness. 

How  full  of  tender  feeling  the  French  are 
must  be  evident  to  anyone  who  comes  to  know 
them  in  their  family  lives.  A  constant  phase  of 
this  tenderness  —  this  impulsive  human  sym- 
pathy, at  its  purest  and  most  true  in  the  pres- 
ence of  poignant  experience  inevitable  in  the 
course  of  nature  —  must  be  familiar  to  every 
traveller  who  lingers  in  France.  Nowhere  else 
does  all  the  world,  of  every  rank,  respond  with 
such  instant,  whole-souled,  consoling  sympathy  to 
the  presence  of  death.  We  are  sometimes  apt  to 
think  garish  the  conventional  pomps  of  a  French 
funeral.     We  should  rather  dwell  in  thought  on 


190       THE  FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

the  gentleness  with  which  the  French  bare  and 
bow  their  heads  throughout  the  streets  while  the 
sad  procession  passes.  The  impulse  may  be  mo- 
mentary, the  act  of  sympathy  forgotten  almost 
before  it  is  done  ;  but  the  fact  of  it  remains 
wonderfully  significant.  When,  for  a  little  while, 
the  French  can  find  themselves  at  one,  in  response 
to  some  deep  human  emotion,  you  may  be  sure 
that  they  are  at  one  with  singular  intensity  of 
tenderness.  That  is  one  reason  why  you  grow 
to  love  them  so  well 


THE  RELATION  OF  LITERATURE 
TO  LIFE 

IN  this  effort  to  give  some  account  of  the 
French  as  I  found  them,  I  have  followed, 
so  nearly  as  might  be,  the  course  of  my 
experiences  in  France.  Beginning  with  the 
universities,  my  official  connection  with  which 
opened  my  opportunities,  I  have  touched  on 
what  I  next  came  to  observe,  the  structure  of 
society ;  I  have  then  told  of  that  more  intimate 
social  fact,  the  family ;  and  finally  I  have  tried 
to  make  clear  my  impression  of  the  French  tem- 
perament, as  these  various  phases  of  life  in  France 
revealed  it  to  me.  Our  considerations  henceforth 
will  be  of  somewhat  different  character.  We 
shall  occupy  ourselves  with  the  manner  in  which 
this  national  temper  displays  itself  in  connection 
with  some  of  the  chief  interests  of  modern  French 
life,  —  literature,  religion,  and  politics.  And  first 
with  literature. 

One  thing  must  instantly  be  evident.     French 
life  and  character,  as  we  have  here  approached 


192       THE   FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

them,  have  not  appeared  quite  as  foreigners,  and 
particularly  English-speaking  foreigners,  are  ac- 
customed to  expect.  At  least  in  America,  the 
French  are  supposed  to  be  frivolous  and  un- 
principled. And  in  our  present  considerations  we 
have  found  them  so  remarkable  for  seriousness 
and  for  regularity  that  1  may  well  seem  to  have 
been  writing  deliberately  virginibus  puerisque. 

If  I  had  been,  I  should  not  have  written  much 
otherwise.  And  here  arises  perhaps  the  most 
perplexing  question  which  must  beset  anyone 
who,  having  been  familiar  with  foreign  prejudice 
concerning  France,  finds  himself  among  French 
people  in  their  daily  lives.  The  France  evident 
to  casual  travellers  and  generally  set  forth  in 
such  French  literature  as  comes  to  foreign  notice 
is  very  different  fi-om  the  France  you  come  to 
know  for  yourself  The  external  aspect  of  them 
is  identical,  no  doubt ;  just  as  the  language  is.  In 
both,  too,  as  everywhere  else  on  earth,  there  is  a 
regularly  organized,  orderly  society,  side  by  side 
with  various  vagary  from  social  order.  The  true 
difference  lies  in  the  fact  that  those  who  know 
France  from  report  are  apt  to  suppose  vagary 
to  be  the  rule  of  French  life,  while  those  who 
know  France  from  personal  experience  vrill  prob- 
ably agree  that  the  most  profound  characteris- 
tic of  the  French  is  rather  their  conscientious 


LITERATURE  AND   LIFE        193 

devotion  to  their  regular  duties.  The  question 
accordingly  becomes  that  of  how  such  divergent 
impressions  can  result  from  a  common  cause. 

To  begin  with,  we  may  well  put  aside  some 
obvious  reasons  for  the  opinion  usually  held  by 
foreigners.  One  general  authority  for  it  may  be 
found  in  the  gossip  of  tourists.  It  is  honest, 
gleeful  or  indignant  as  the  case  may  be,  and 
reducible  to  a  simple  fact  true  of  travel  any- 
where. No  matter  where  a  stranger  may  stray, 
he  will  see  instantly  the  most  irregular,  the  least 
respectable,  the  most  broadly  commonplace  phase 
of  the  society  which  surrounds  the  hotel  where 
he  has  taken  up  his  momentary  abode.  Through- 
out the  nineteenth  century  Paris  has  been 
perhaps  the  most  attractive  capital  in  Europe. 
It  has  attracted  to  itself,  at  least,  more  visit- 
ors than  any  other.  More  than  any  other, 
accordingly,  it  has  developed  into  what  seem 
permanently  established  forms  those  various 
catch-penny  devices  for  the  allurement  of  stran- 
gers which  make  any  great  city,  in  certain  as- 
pects, more  like  a  mere  watering-place  than  one 
always  quite  understands.  In  fact,  however,  the 
Paris  of  travel  —  the  hotels  and  the  theatres, 
the  streets,  the  museums  and  the  restaurants, 
together  with  endless  other  places  of  public  en- 
tertainment —  is  the  least  Parisian,  and  the  leas*, 

^  18 


194       THE   FRANCE   OF   TODAY 

French  Paris  imaginable.  It  is  only  one  more  of 
the  great  places  of  amusement,  open  —  for  human 
good  or  ill  —  all  over  the  world. 

Not  long  ago  a  friend  happened  to  tell  me  a 
bit  of  experience  which  just  here  may  be  illumi- 
nating. He  was  himself  a  respectable  citizen  of 
New  York.  Something  had  called  him  to  Brazil, 
where,  without  personal  introduction,  he  had 
passed  two  or  three  weeks  at  Rio  de  Janeiro. 
He  had  returned  home  with  the  honest  convic- 
tion that  there  was  not  a  decent  human  being  in 
the  whole  Brazilian  republic.  Every  prospect  had 
been  pleasing,  but  men  and  women  had  displayed 
an  ultimate  vileness  of  character  in  which  the 
corruption  of  Europe  and  the  crudity  of  America 
seemed  indistinguishably  blended.  So  Brazil  was 
not  sweet  in  the  nostrils  of  this  reputable  Ameri- 
can, who  honestly  believed  that  he  knew  Brazil 
from  personal  observation.  The  limits  of  his  ex- 
perience were  startlingly  revealed  to  him  a  year 
or  two  later.  On  a  steamer  going  to  Europe  he 
had  the  pleasure  of  meeting  a  congenial  fellow- 
traveller,  of  about  his  own  age.  This  gentleman 
presently  turned  out  to  be  a  Brazilian,  who  had 
passed  a  month  or  so  in  America  on  his  way  to 
Paris.  He  had  come  to  the  United  States  as  a 
stranger,  with  no  means  of  access  to  society; 
he  had  spent  a  few  days  at  the  chief  hotels  of 


LITERATURE   AND  LIFE        195 

our  principal  Eastern  cities  ;  and  his  honest  con- 
clusion, derived  from  personal  observation,  had 
been  that  nothing  imaginable  could  exceed  the 
social  corruption  of  Boston  and  New  York.  Per- 
sonal respectability  he  conceived  unknown  in 
either,  just  as  my  American  friend  had  conceived 
it  unknown  in  Brazil.  On  the  voyage  they  grew 
to  be  great  friends  ;  and  as  each  was  blest  with 
a  sense  of  humor,  they  corrected  each  other's 
impressions  instead  of  quarrelling  about  them. 
They  parted  happier  men  and  wiser,  having  come 
to  understand  that  what  each  had  seen  in  the 
other's  country  was  only  what  casual  travellers 
must  always  find  everywhere.  Vice  is  less  various, 
far  less  individual,  than  virtue.  Of  all  common- 
places, it  is  the  most  irredeemably  monotonous. 

Once  for  all,  then,  we  may  put  aside  the  disre- 
pute of  France  so  far  as  it  comes  to  us  from  trav- 
ellers' tales.  It  is  no  more  French  than  it  is 
Brazilian  or  American.  We  can  hardly  deal  in 
so  summary  a  way  with  another  source  of  our  im- 
pression of  this  deplorable  social  fact.  Whoever 
has  looked  into  the  windows  of  French  shops, 
where  books  and  prints  are  displayed,  whoever 
has  glanced  at  such  French  comic  papers,  and 
the  like,  as  stray  into  restaurants  and  barbers' 
shops,  and  into  club  reading-rooms  elsewhere 
than  in  France,  can  hardly  fail  to  have  found 


196       THE   FRANCE   OF   TODAY 

endless  warrant  for  our  conventional  faith  in 
French  naughtiness.  He  may  have  been  at- 
tracted ;  he  may  have  been  shocked ;  the  one 
sure  thing  is  that  he  will  not  have  been  enlight- 
ened. For  full  enlightenment,  indeed,  he  will 
need  an  experience  open  only  to  those  who  come 
to  know  French  people  as  they  actually  live. 
Then  he  will  slowly  grow  aware  that  in  decent 
French  opinion  this  kind  of  publication  is  no 
more  reputable  than  it  seems  to  him,  or  to 
anybody  else.  It  does  not  express  life  in  any 
comprehensive  sense ;  it  is  so  far  from  express- 
ing life,  as  life  presents  itself  to  Frenchmen  of 
the  better  sort,  that  it  does  not  even  appeal  to 
___jUtiem.  They  ignore  it,  just  as  respectable  Ameri- 
cans ignore  the  obnoxious  advertisements  of  pa- 
tent medicines  so  frequent  in  the  cheaper  sort 
of  newspapers  or  on  flaming  bill-boards.  The* 
simple  truth  is  that  all  over  the  world  you  will 
find  disreputable  objects  of  commerce,  kept 
technically  within  the  law.  Those  most  obvious 
among  ourselves  are  devices  for  encouraging  tee- 
totalers to  drink  adulterated  alcohol ;  those  most 
obvious  in  France  are  designed  rather  to  encour- 
age effrontery ;  but  both  alike,  and  all  other  such 
matters,  are  really  to  be  classed  together.  Any 
American  would  be  surprised  and  pained  to  find 
a  worthy  French  family  fuddling  itself  with  one 


LITERATURE   AND   LIFE        197 

of  those  proprietary  nostrums  which  help  debase 
country  folks  and  tired  shop-girls  in  so  many 
parts  of  the  United  States.  The  sentiments  of 
Frenchmen,  when  brought  face  to  face  with  cer- 
tain Parisian  publications  in  the  reading-rooms 
of  American  clubs,  are  said  to  be  even  more  be- 
wildering. They  sometimes  permit  themselves 
to  wonder,  I  am  told,  whether  their  surroundings 
can  really  be  consonant  with  self-respect. 

So  far,  accordingly,  as  our  notions  concerning 
the  French  may  be  traced  either  to  travellers' 
stories  or  to  objects  of  shady  commerce,  we  may 
dispose  of  them  once  for  all.  They  are  simply 
stupid.  Very  clearly,  however,  this  fails  to  cover 
the  whole  matter.  What  remains  for  us  to  ex- 
plain is  considerable.  It  consists  of  novels  written 
by  men  who  have  attained  the  highest  degree  of 
personal  recognition  as  serious  masters  of  litera- 
ture —  a  seat  among  the  forty  immortals  of  the 
Acaddmie  Francjaise.  It  consists  of  plays  which 
everybody  in  Paris,  French  as  well  as  foreign, 
flocks  to  see,  and  eagerly  discusses.  It  consists 
of  that  great  body  of  literature  —  in  many  re- 
spects the  most  admirable  of  all  modern  times 
—  which  any  student  of  modern  French  must 
eagerly  and  seriously  study.  Whoever  has  tried 
to  teach  French  in  American  institutions  of  learn- 
ing where  co-education  prevails,  must  have  found 


198       THE   PRANCE   OP  TODAY 

himself  aghast.  Countless  writers  who  cannot 
be  neglected  will  bring  him  before  long  to 
dangerous  ground.  In  general,  there  can  be  no 
denial  that  the  novelists  and  the  dramatists  of 
modern  France  set  forth  a  state  of  society 
deeply  different  from  that  described  in  English 
or  American  works  by  writers  of  equal  dignity. 
Any  foreigner  would  naturally  infer  that  the 
society  on  which  their  work  is  based  must  be 
far  more  corrupt  than  ours.  Of  course,  it  may 
be.  In  matters  so  intimate  as  this  no  one  can 
ever  feel  sure  of  anything  more  than  personal 
conviction.  Beyond  question,  however,  no  one 
who  is  cordially  received  by  the  modern  French 
would  derive  from  his  intercourse  with  them 
any  such  impression  as  we  have  all  derived  from 
what  they  write  about  themselves ;  and  anyone 
famiUar  with  society  in  modem  England  or 
America  would  probably  find  it  about  what 
literature  had  led  him  to  expect.  Our  precise 
purpose  now  is  to  account,  as  well  as  we  can, 
for  this  deep  difference. 

In  trying  to  account  for  it  we  must  soon 
remind  ourselves  of  a  fact  asserted  whenever 
this  question  arises.  Throughout  the  modern 
English-speaking  world,  at  least  so  far  as  hving 
memory  extends,  there  has  been  a  general  as- 
sumption that  standard  literature  is   addressed 


LITERATURE   AND   LIFE        199 

to  everybody  who  can  read,  —  men  and  women, 
old  and  young,  boys  and  girls.  The  very  res- 
tiveness  occasionally  displayed  by  English  or 
American  writers  in  the  presence  of  this  con- 
vention only  serves  to  define  it.  Most  of  us 
accept  the  limitations  of  it  just  as  we  accept 
those  of  the  language  in  which  we  are  forced  to 
express  our  meaning  as  best  we  may.  How 
completely  different  this  assumption  is  from  that 
of  modern  France,  I  may  best  indicate  perhaps 
by  a  specific  instance.  After  one  of  my  lectures 
at  the  Sorbonne,  a  French  lady,  accompanied  by 
her  daughter,  a  girl  of  eighteen  or  so,  did  me 
the  honor  to  present  herself  to  me  with  a  request 
for  a  little  expert  advice.  The  daughter,  it 
appeared,  had  learned  to  read  English  fluently 
and  desired  to  extend  her  reading  beyond  the 
classic  novels  of  Cooper  and  of  Sir  Walter  Scott. 
Could  I  name  some  contemporary  works  which 
she  might  find  interesting  ?  My  impromptu 
answer  took  the  form  of  a  few  hasty  memo- 
randa setting  forth  the  names  of  some  standard 
writers,  and  of  three  or  four  popular  magazines. 
The  good  lady  was  perplexed.  I  could  hardly 
have  understood  her,  she  thought ;  she  had  not 
asked  me  what  authors  were  eniinent,  she  had 
asked  what  books  were  suitable  for  a  young  girl ; 
as  to  the  magazines,  she  was  right,  she  believed. 


200       THE  FRANCE   OF   TODAY 

in  supposing  them  to  be  addressed  to  the  general 
public  —  in  which  case  they  were,  of  course,  not 
the  kind  of  thing  she  had  in  mind.  I  tried  to 
explain  that  any  young  girl  might  range  securely 
throughout  the  work  of  the  novelists  in  question, 
and  that  our  most  respected  magazines  would 
not  cloud  the  innocence  of  a  nursery.  My  efforts 
seemed  fruitless.  She  attributed  my  opinions,  I 
think,  to  my  obviously  imperfect  command  of 
French.  The  fact  that  a  popular  literature  could 
anywhere  be  addressed  to  a  public  so  comprehen- 
sive as  to  include  respectable  youth  seemed  to 
her  inconceivable.  And  how  her  daughter  s 
education  proceeded  in  the  matter  of  EngHsh,  I 
have  never  been  privileged  to  know. 

The  public  to  whom  French  literature  is  ad- 
dressed, in  short,  is  always  assumed  to  be  ma- 
ture. To  grown-up  people  anywhere  you  may 
obviously  say  things  unmentionable  to  children. 
Maxima  reverentia  debetur  pueris  ;  nobody  ques- 
tions that,  either  in  France  or  among  ourselves. 
The  difference  is  that  we  are  disposed  to  display 
our  reverence  for  youth  by  excessive  attention  to 
,  our  library  shelves,  and  that  the  French  dis- 
play theirs  by  the  more  summary  process  of 
keeping  the  library  door  shut. 

Such  differences  of  national  impulse  as  this  are 
never  without  cause.     The  cause  in  this   case 


LITERATURE   AND   LIFE        201 

may  be  traced  pretty  readily  to  the  different  con- 
ceptions of  education,  and  particularly  of  domestic 
education,  entertained  by  the  French  and  by  our- 
selves.    The  fundamental  question  of  education 
everywhere  is  how  to  prepare  children  for  ma- 
turity.    In  English-speaking  society,  which,  as 
we  have  seen,  is  far  less  systematic  than  that  of 
France,  this  is  held  to  mean  that  we  must  train 
them  to  make  their  way.      In  the  much  more 
systematic  society  of  France,  on  the  other  hand, 
it  seems  rather  to  mean  that  we  should  fit  them 
to  take  their  places  in  the  world.     Slight  as  the 
difference  between  these  assumptions  may  seem, 
it  tends  to  widely  different  conclusions  of  prin- 
ciple.    Everybody   knows  everywhere  that  all 
things   are  not  what   they   seem.      Everybody 
knows  that  preaching  and  practice  can  nowhere 
quite  agree.     Everybody  knows  that  so  long  as 
civilization  persists  we  must  keep  on  both  preach- 
ing and  practising  —  bringing  precept  and  prac- 
tice into  some  semblance  of  harmony,  each  for 
himself,  as  best  we  may.     We  try  to  meet  these 
conditions  by  giving  our  children  the  greatest 
degree  of  experience  which  is  within  the  range 
of  safety ;  the  French  prefer  to  surround  theirs 
with  the  greatest  degree  of  protection  which  is 
within  the  range  of  prudence.     Each  of  us  is 
prone  to  excess.    Our  children  are  sometimes  left 


(202  )     THE   FRANCE  OF  TODAY 

V _^^ 

too  much  to  themselves;  theirs  sometimes  ap- 
pear distorted  by  undue  control.  You  will  feel 
the  difference  when  you  compare  a  French 
Lycee  with  an  English  public  school.  You  will 
feel  it  just  as  much,  and  hardly  more,  when 
you  compare  a  Yankee  play-room  with  the 
children's  corner  of  any  French  foyer.  We 
try  to  make  our  children  face  fact,  insisting  less 
than  we  used  to  on  abstract  principle.  The 
French  still  insist  on  principle,  dissembling,  so 
far  as  they  can,  discordant  or  unwelcome  fact. 
We  desire  to  develop  the  individual ;  with  them 
the  prime  impulse  is  to  maintain  the  social 
system. 

In  any  such  contrast  as  this  it  is  hard  to  avoid 
the  appearance  of  urging  one  side  as  better  than 
the  other.  I  have  been  trying  not  to  do  so.  The 
reward  of  our  methods  is  found,  perhaps  most 
surely,  in  the  frank  personal  candor  of  our  young 
people.  The  reward  of  theirs  is  found  most 
surely  in  the  deep  intensity  of  their  family  affec- 
tions. In  each  process  there  must  be  a  stage 
disturbing  and  even  alarming  to  people  who  be- 
lieve in  the  other.  But  when  we  come  to  the 
end  and  ask  ourselves  which  of  the  methods 
makes  the  better  men  and  women,  there  is  no 
answer.  Each,  honestly  pursued,  leads  to  the 
same  result.     What  almost  surely  ends  ill  is  an 


LITERATURE  AND  LIFE        203  ^ 

attempt  to  train  the  children  of  either  society 
in  the  manner  generally  upheld  by  the  other. 

Far  as  we  may  have  seemed  to  stray  from  lit- 
erature, we  have  only  been  reminding  ourselves 
of  one  reason  for  the  widely  different  assump- 
tions concerning  its  function  among  ourselves 
and  in  France.  Our  whole  conception  of  educa- 
tion implies  our  belief  that  literature  should  be 
addressed  to  everybody  who  can  and  will  read 
it.  Their  whole  conception  of  education  implies 
their  contrary  belief  that  literature  should  ..Jbe 
addressed  only  to  those  who  have  outgrown  do- 
mestic supervision.  Our  custom  compels  more 
reticence  than  theirs.  To  each  of  us  his  own  cus- 
tom is  bound  to  seem  a  law  of  nature.  So  they 
think  our  novels  hypocritical,  and  theirs  seem  to 
us  corrupt ;  and  both  of  us  are  wrong.  ..-*--—-' 

When  we  foreigners  fully  agree  that  French 
literature  is  addressed  only  to  mature  people, 
we  may,  perhaps,  begin  to  understand  it  better. 
One  delightfully  evident  feature  of  it  is  clearly 
due  to  this  fact.  I  mean  the  beautiful  precision 
and  finish  of  French  style.  Whatever  a  French 
writer's  topic,  he  must  never  forget  that  his  read- 
ers will  be  of  such  age  and  disposition  as  to  be 
competent  and  scrupulous  critics  of  his  literary 
manners.  When,  Hke  any  English  writer,  you 
are  addressing  so  widely  general  a  public  that 


204       THE   FRANCE  OF  TODAY 

you  cannot  feel  sure  of  their  intelligence,  you 
may  permit  yourself,  even  without  quite  realiz- 
ing that  you  do  so,  considerable  carelessness 
in  expression.  When,  like  all  French  writers, 
you  are  addressing  only  a  mature  and  highly 
cultivated  public,  you  must  be  more  careful, 
even  though  you  do  not  deliberately  try  to  be, 
of  duly  accepted  conventions.  In  consequence 
you  will  generally  be  more  agreeable.  Obser- 
vance of  convention  is  always  pleasant  ;  sur- 
prising people  are  not  comfortable  companions ; 
good  style  is  a  phase  of  good  manners.  Our 
certainty  that  French  books  will  be  well  written 
affects  us  like  the  certainty  with  which  we  expect 
and  find  civilized  conventions  in  the  homes  of 
some  of  our  friends,  and  not  gladdening  our 
essentially  cordial  relations  in  those  of  others. 
American  books  and  English  are  not  always 
careless  ;  but  you  never  know  what  to  expect 
of  them.  Some,  and  parts  of  many,  are  de- 
lightfully written ;  some,  inoffensively ;  most 
of  them  seem  written  anyhow.  A  kind  of  restless 
insecurity  results  each  time  we  take  up  a 
new  one.  Our  own  Ufe,  our  own  style,  are 
wanting  in  civilized  grace  and  amenity.  These 
qualities  in  the  style  of  the  French  are  very 
welcome  to  our  foreign  taste. 
At  the  same  time  there  can  be  no  doubt  that 


LITERATURE   AND   LIFE         205 

these  conventions  of  French  style  often  impress 
us  as  artificial.  At  least  in  matters  of  form,  the 
literature  of  France  seems  far  less  at  liberty  than 
ours  to  stray  where  it  will.  And  the  impression 
which  it  thus  makes  on  us  is  strengthened  by 
some  obvious  features  of  its  substance.  A  novel 
or  a  play,  for  example,  almost  always  presents 
definite  pictures  of  social  life.  Take  a  scene  from 
any  standard  comedy.  A  man  enters  to  make  a 
call  on  a  lady.  He  wears  his  gloves  and  he  car- 
ries his  hat  —  circumstances  evidently  affording 
him  opportunity  for  a  little  easy  stage  business 
with  his  hands.  Obviously,  we  think,  these  de- 
tails are  literary  conventions,  Uke  the  pleasantly 
formal  phrases  with  which  he  is  received.  Or  a 
company  is  assembled,  each  in  his  own  chair,  and 
each  takes  part  in  the  general  conversation,  with 
no  symptom  of  such  division  into  groups  of  two 
as  is  pretty  sure  to  take  place  among  ourselves. 
Again,  we  think,  this  is  a  piece  of  literary  con- 
vention, pleasantly  like  that  which  requires  these 
creatures  of  conventional  imagination  to  talk  in 
happier  style  than  we  are  used  to  at  home,  and  in 
English  novels.  There  seems,  too,  on  reflection, 
a  sound  artistic  reason  for  the  conventional  reg- 
ularities of  French  literature  and  the  French 
stage.  Nothing  could  more  strongly  emphasize, 
by  contrast,  the  rather  irregular  lines  of  conduct 


206       THE   FRANCE   OF   TODAY 

to  which  punctiliously  decorous  persons  prove  to 
be  addicted. 

As  you  grow  to  know  France  better,  your 
notion  of  these  conventions  of  manners  will 
be  quietly  modified.  Conventions  they  remain, 
of  course,  —  matters  of  civilized  system,  as  dis- 
tinguished from  momentary  impulse.  But  they 
prove  to  be  conventions  of  quite  another  char- 
acter than  you  had  supposed.  They  had  seemed, 
like  the  conventions  of  style  through  which  they 
were  made  known  to  you,  amenities  of  literature, 
and  hardly  anything  more.  They  turn  out  to  be 
the  accepted  amenities  of  French  behavior.  The 
manners  presented  on  the  stage  and  in  novels 
are  photographically  true  to  the  social  habits  of 
the  present  day.  You  were  right,  no  doubt,  in 
supposing  that  gloves  and  a  hat  furnish  an 
actor  with  easy  business  for  his  hands ;  but 
that  is  not  the  reason  why  he  comes  on  the 
stage  with  them.  A  man  enters  a  room  with 
them  throughout  France ;  not  to  do  so  would 
be  to  make  himself  unceremoniously  at  home, 
almost  to  the  point  of  scandal.  You  were  right 
in  supposing  that  conversation  addressed  to 
everybody  within  hearing  is  inevitable  on  the 
stage  and  convenient  in  fiction  ;  but  that  is  not 
the  reason  why  you  will  find  it  everywhere  in 
French  literature.  4  To  talk  to  your  neighbor  in 


LITERATURE  AND   LIFE        207 

a  French  drawing-room,  instead  of  addressing  the 
whole  company,  would  be  almost  as  uncouth  as 
if  at  home  you  should  plant  your  chin  on  his 
shoulder  and  whisper  in  his  ear. ,  These  French 
conventions,  at  first  blush  so  evidently  literary, 
turn  out  to  be  conventions  not  of  literature  but 
of  life. 

Beyond  question  they  are  among  the  condi- 
tions which  make  French  life  agreeable.  You 
will  find  them  in  all  ranks  of  French  society. 
What  is  more,  you  will  find  them  in  all  degrees 
of  French  friendship,  even  to  the  domestic  pri- 
vacy of  the  foyer.  You  must  stray  further  in 
France  than  ever  I  did  if  you  would  seek  such 
unsocial  carelessness  of  behavior  as  you  shall  often 
find  at  home  without  the  seeking.  Wherefore, 
you  may  safely  conclude  that  French  life  in  its 
daily  detail  is  pleasanter  than  Hfe  among  our- 
selves—  far  more  deeply  permeated  with  the 
graciousness  of  civilization.  To  find  yourself, 
wherever  you  are,  in  a  little  company,  —  one  of 
an  affable  group,  —  is  a  less  perplexing  experi- 
ence than  to  find  yourself  in  a  collection  of 
casual  couples  trying  to  think  of  something  to 
say  to  each  other.  And  yet  you  presently  begin 
to  perceive  that  this  is  not  the  whole  story. 
More  agreeable  in  any  given  instance,  this  pre- 
cision of  conduct  tends  to  grow  a  shade  mo- 


208       THE   FRANCE   OF   TODAY 

notonous.  The  formal  comedy  of  daily  life  in 
France  repeats  itself  as  interminably  as  the  pleas- 
ant pictures  of  it  on  the  French  stage  repeat 
one  another.  Though  it  never  ceases  to  please, 
its  charms  soon  fail  to  include  the  charm  of 
novelty.  One  interior  is  so  like  the  last,  or  the 
next,  that  when  you  have  made  six  or  eight  calls 
in  Paris,  you  will  be  at  pains  to  remember  which 
was  which.  The  ease  and  the  grace  of  French 
life  depend  on  a  degree  of  convention  unfavor- 
able to  variety.  Uiiless  you  pry  far  beneath 
the  surface  of  daily  life  in  that  pleasant  France, 
you  grow  to  feel,  it  offers  rather  less  scope  for 
obvious  individuality  than  you  have  been  used 
to  elsewhere. 

Here  at  last  we  can  begin  to  understand  the 
full  significance  of  an  epigram  which,  a  few 
years  ago,  startled  a  company  of  Americans  as- 
sembled to  welcome  an  eminent  French  man  of 
letters.  When  the  speeches  of  formal  greeting 
were  over,  the  after-dinner  eloquence  took  a  more 
familiar  turn,  and  one  of  our  own  novelists  ven- 
tured to  ask  the  Parisian  writer  why  the  heroines 
of  French  fiction  are  so  generally  given  to  mis- 
behavior. He  could  not  believe,  he  politely 
added,  that  misconduct  was  general  among  the 
women  of  France ;  in  reality,  he  could  not  doubt 
that  French  women  are  among  the  best  creatures 


LITERATURE  AND   LIFE        209 

a  good  God  ever  made  ;  why  should  they  not  ap- 
pear so  in  French  hterature  ?  The  French  writer 
replied  with  that  delightful  ease  of  manner  and 
of  phrase  which  makes  post-prandial  discourse 
in  France  a  matter  rather  of  anticipation  than  of 
dread.  Our  friend,  he  assured  us,  could  not  have 
generalized  French  womanhood  more  happily  if 
he  had  enjoyed  the  privilege  of  knowing  from 
infancy  how  completely  it  justified  the  reverence 
in  which  all  who  understand  it  must  hold  it. 
And,  in  explaining  why  this  aspect  of  it  was  not 
more  salient  in  the  long  historical  perspective  of 
French  literature,  he  could  not  find  a  happier 
phrase  than  one  uttered  under  similar  circum- 
stances by  his  lamented  friend,  Monsieur  Guy  de 
Maupassant.  When  that  most  eminent  of  liter- 
ary artists  was  once  asked,  in  a  familiar  company, 
whether  he  might  not  some  time  gladden  us  with 
a  heroine  more  sedate,  if  not  more  alluring,  than 
those  with  whom  we  were  all  familiar,  he  had 
resolutely  said,  No  —  for  "  Vhonnete  femme  ria 
pas  de  roman.'" 
^  The  idea  that  good  women  are  not  interesting 
baffled  this  company  of  intelligent  Americans!  ^; 
They  were  familiar  only  with  their  own  society, 
where  young  girls  have  their  blameless  romances 
as  regular  preliminaries  to  happy  and  faithful 

marriages,  where  good  married  women  —  young 

U 


210       THE  FRANCE  OF  TODAY 

and  old  —  have  their  friendships  and  their  inter- 
ests, apart  from  domestic  life,  as  innocent  as  the 
romances  of  their  girlhood.  To  these  Americans, 
accordingly,  Maupassant  appeared  to  assert  that 
no  woman  could  be  interesting,  in  any  aspect, 
until  she  took  to  mischief.  This  I  conceive  to 
be  far  from  the  true  meaning  of  his  epigram. 
His  comment  was  concerned  not  with  human 
character  in  general  but  with  a  state  of  society 
extremely  different  from  that  to  which  Americans 
are  accustomed.  We  all  know  how  deeply  for- 
eigners misapprehend  our  manners;  few  of  us 
stop  to  think  that  we  may  equally  fall  to  mis- 
understandilTg  theirs. 

Such  social  conventions  as  ours,  or  such  lack 
of  them,  if  you  choose,  —  such  freedom  from  fixed 
system,  —  make  life,  in  its  every-day  aspects,  a 
tolerably  varied  thing.  Even  the  most  innocent 
young  girl  properly  has  her  Uttle  secrets,  her 
pretty  perplexities ;  and  this  with  no  disregard 
of  the  customs  in  which  she  has  been  brought 
up.  Social  conventions,  on  the  other  hand,  so 
precise  and  so  systematic  as  those  of  the  French, 
Wo  far  to  keep  young  girls  and  good  women  from 
such  experiences  as  should  avert  the  drowsiness 
of  monotony.  Our  ideal  of  womanly  conduct 
demands  little  more  than  rectitude  and  candor. 
Theirs  demands  that  a  good  woman  attend  un- 


LITERATURE   AND   LIFE        211 

remittently  to  the  obvious  business  of  her  useful 
life.  Each  of  us  would  probably  agree  in  respect 
and  admiration  for  the  ideal  most  cherished  by 
the  other.  Each  might  well  believe  that  the 
ideal  of  the  other  was  implied  in  his  own.  But 
the  emphasis  would  differ,  just  as  we  have  seen 
the  emphasis  of  America  to  differ  in  other  re- 
spects from  that  of  France.  And  no  matter 
how  much  Americans  may  prefer  their  own  em- 
phasis, they  cannot  deny  that  the  emphasis  of 
the  French  on  obedience  to  conventional  system 
must  tend  to  prevent,  in  every-day  life,  that  sort 
of  individuality  among  good  women  which  often 
makes  them,  among  ourselves,  happy  subjects  for 
literary  treatment.  The  moment  that  we  reach 
this  point  of  view  we  can  see  —  whether  we  re- 
sent the  epigram  or  not  —  what  a  French  novelist 
means  when  he  declares  that  good  women  afford 
no  opportunity  to  a  writer  of  fiction. 

The  honnete  femme  of  France,  in  short,  is  a 
devoted  woman  who  has  more  things  to  do  than 
waking  hours  suffice  for.  These  she  does  cheer- 
fully, faithfully,  beautifully.  She  has  the  cares 
of  her  household ;  she  is  passionately  devoted  to 
her  children;  so  long  as  her  parents  live,  she 
is  devoted  to  them  as  well ;  the  interests  of  her 
brothers  and  her  sisters  are  her  own ;  more  still 
her  own  are  the  interests,  in  every  sense,  of  her 


212       THE   FRANCE  OF   TODAY 

husrband.  She  is  the  central  fact  in  the  national 
life  of  her  country.  But  from  the  point  of  view 
of  the  story-teller  her  career  is  not  interesting. 

The  essence  of  any  interesting  literary  prob- 
lem, indeed,  may  perhaps  be  reduced  to  this :  it 
involves  a  conflict,  more  or  less  impelled  by  per- 
sonal passion,  between  individual  impulse  and 
social  surroundings.  The  question,  in  its  sim- 
plest and  most  comprehensive  terms,  is  one  of 
adjustment  between  an  organism  and  its  en- 
vironment. The  more  rigid  the  environment, 
the  more  sternly  it  represses  and  controls  in- 
dividual tendencies  to  variation.  What  would 
be  normal  in  a  society  which  cherishes  above  all 
the  ideal  of  individuality  becomes  exceptional  in 
a  society  which  cherishes,  with  almost  religious 
fervor,  the  ideal  of  system.  When  any  question 
of  individual  variation  from  an  accepted  type 
declares  itself  in  France,  accordingly,  it  involves 
a  far  more  abrupt  divergence  from  general  pre- 
sumption than  is  necessarily,  or  even  usually,  the 
case  among  ourselves. 

For  various  reasons,  too,  these  exceptions  to 
the  rule  of  social  life,  interesting  anywhere,  make 
exceptional  appeal  to  interest  among  the  French. 
One  condition  of  a  systematic  habit  of  life  is  that 
whoever  is  addicted  to  it  must  grow,  by  very 
force  of  habit,  to  feel  it  at  once  a  phase  of  the 


LITERATURE   AND   LIFE         213 

law  of  nature  and,  like  other  such  conditions  of 
existence,  exasperatingly  repressive.  We  human 
beings,  compelled  to  live  on  the  surface  of  the 
earth,  would  now  and  then  like  to  soar  in  the  air, 
partly  because  we  know  that  if  we  could  do  so 
at  will,  we  should  be  workers  of  miracles.  And 
with  people  to  whom,  for  generations,  social  re- 
straint has  been  the  unbroken  rule  of  life,  vagaries 
from  such  restraint,  though  not  miracles,  have 
a  touch  of  miraculous  fascination.  When  New 
England  was  given  to  godly  austerities,  small  boys 
thought  it  a  fine  thing  to  say  damn ;  nowadays, 
amid  more  relaxed  surroundings,  this  expletive 
has  lost  its  charm  and  is  getting  out  of  fashion. 

Again,  and  far  more  characteristically,  when 
such  fixed  lines  of  conduct  as  prevail  in  France 
become  the  regular  rule  of  existence,  they  are 
bound  to  present  themselves,  to  people  who  accept 
them,  as  generalizations.  Any  system  tends  to 
reduce  itself  to  a  series  of  propositions ;  and  when 
propositions  are  once  stated  and  received  as  true, 
it  is  not  only  in  mathematics  that  we  are  dis- 
posed to  regard  them  as  universal.  Now,  the 
propositions  which  govern  the  social  life  of  the 
French,  even  in  their  most  whole-souled  domes- 
ticity, have  gone  beyond  any  mere  formulas  of 
language.  They  have  embodied  themselves  in  the 
forms,  the  manners,  the  details  of  all  terrestrial 


214       THE   FRANCE   OF   TODAY 

habit.  Take  any  French  family,  for  example, 
whom  you  may  have  had  the  privilege  to  know. 
Every  one  of  its  members  will  have  some  stated 
occupation  for  every  hour  from  morning  till  night. 
The  old  lady  in  Pailleron's  comedy,  who  regu- 
larly makes  her  appearance  in  the  drawing-room 
at  four  in  the  afternoon,  might  be  taken,  in  this 
respect,  as  an  incarnation  of  France.  And,  even 
among  people  who  live  in  the  simplest  way,  there 
is  very  little  personal,  as  distinguished  from  do- 
mestic, privacy.  A  Frenchman's  house  is  his 
castle,  even  more  than  an  Englishman's;  it  is 
his  own,  inaccessible  except  to  those  whom  he 
favors  with  the  password  of  the  day.  But  within 
it  he  is  so  little  alone  that,  if  he  wants  to  be  by 
himself,  his  only  resource  is  some  holy  of  holies, 
where  he  can  lock  himself  in.  Among  his  own 
family  he  has  his  open  and  regular  part  to  play, 
as  surely  and  as  socially  as  the  least  of  them. 
He  plays  it  cheerfully,  willingly,  happily,  as  they 
play  theirs.  Human  nature  and  human  life  gen- 
eralize themselves  unopposed.  Love  of  system 
makes  system  the  stronger,  and  the  growing 
strength  of  system  strengthens  the  love  for  it 
with  all  the  security  of  habit. 

Amid  such  strength  of  beloved  environment, 
the  persistent  tendency  of  human  nature  to  vari- 
ation presents  something  more  than  a  specific 


LITERATURE  AND   LIFE        215 

problem;  it  gives  rise  to  many  general  consid- 
erations, which  people  unused  to  such  conditions 
would  hardly  suspect.  One  reason  why  this  is 
not  instantly  evident  lies  in  the  fact  that,  whether 
in  literature  or  in  life,  any  individual  variation 
from  an  accepted  type  —  any  assertion  of  per- 
sonal independence  from  the  control  of  accepted 
custom  —  is  bound  to  seem  peculiar  to  the  indi- 
vidual involved.  Otherwise  human  beings  would 
be  no  more  stimulating  facts  than  algebraic  sym- 
bols or  tin  soldiers.  The  precision  of  the  French 
mind,  too,  demands  that  when  the  problem  of  any 
such  variation  is  presented  in  literary  form  it 
shall  be  stated  concretely.  You  must  read  far  in 
standard  French  novels  or  plays  before  you  shall 
discover  there  a  character  who  shall  not  seem  to 
be  somebody  in  particular  as  distinguished  from 
somebody  in  general.  And  yet,  all  the  while, 
this  individuality,  this  vivid  personality,  of  the 
characters  in  French  literature  or  on  the  French 
stage  is  itself  a  matter  of  convention.  It  is  a 
phase  of  the  same  mental  habit,  the  same  im- 
memorial tradition  of  expression,  which  makes 
the  style  of  France  so  admirably,  so  brilliantly 
precise.  In  point  of  fact,  you  will  find,  these 
characters  — vividly  individual  though  they  be  — 
are  accepted  by  the  public  for  whom  they  are 
imaginatively  created  not  quite  as  individuals, 


216       THE   FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

but  far  more  instantly  as  types,  as  abstractions, 
as  terms  to  be  used  in  social  reasoning  rather 
than  as  objects  of  sympathetic  contemplation. 

What  I  have  in  mind  must  be  familiar  to  any- 
body who  has  heard  French  people  discuss  current 
literature  among  themselves.  You  make  a  call 
in  Paris,  for  example,  and  find  six  or  eight  peo- 
ple accidentally  gathered  together  in  a  pleasant 
drawing-room.  They  prove  to  be  talking  about 
a  play  just  brought  out  at  one  of  the  better 
theatres.  You  have  happened  to  see  it  —  with 
alert  interest,  and  at  the  same  time  with  a  dis- 
tinct emotion  of  such  sort  as  used  to  impel  the 
English  of  French  caricature  to  summaiize  their 
impressions  of  the  Parisian  stage  in  the  single 
word  shocking.  Rather  to  your  dismay,  some 
of  the  ladies  present  appear  to  have  shared  your 
interest  without  a  tinge  of  your  emotional  reac- 
tion. They  say  acute  things,  which  would  never 
have  occurred  to  you,  about  details  of  the  acting. 
You  begin  to  perceive  the  standard  of  art  to 
which  a  French  actor  is  held  by  the  critical  intel- 
ligence of  his  public.  In  reflecting  on  this  aspect 
of  the  situation,  you  forget  for  an  instant  your 
Yankee  displeasure  at  the  lines  of  conduct  which 
these  admirable  histrionic  artists  had  called  to 
your  attention.  You  lose  the  thread  of  the  con- 
versation.    When  you  try  to  catch  it  again,  you 


LITERATURE   AND   LIFE        217 

find  that  it  has  led  to  another  phase  of  the  drama 
in  question.  These  excellent  women  —  there  are 
no  young  girls  in  the  company  —  are  no  longer 
discussing  the  art  of  the  actors  ;  they  are  eagerly 
expressing  their  opinions  concerning  what  the 
characters  in  the  play  were  about.  And  here 
comes  your  enlightenment.  To  you  the  situation 
in  question  had  seemed  vividly  individual;  Ar- 
mand  was  Armand,  Germaine  was  Germaine.  To 
them,  for  all  the  precision  of  the  terms  which  set 
forth  the  loves  of  Armand  and  Germaine,  the  situ- 
ation had  evidently  seemed  generalized.  You  had 
been  thinking  of  it  in  arithmetical  terms ;  to  them 
the  terms  had  rather  been  algebraic.  It  is  ten  to 
one  that  where  you  would  have  said  Armand  in 
discussing  the  situation,  they  will  say  a  man  ;  that 
where  you  would  have  said  Germaine  they  will  say 
a  woman,  or  a  wife,  or  an  honest  woman.  Before 
you  have  quite  realized  this  difference,  the  conver- 
sation will  very  likely  have  pursued  its  way  still 
further.  It  will  have  generalized  itself,  you  hardly 
perceive  when  and  how ;  and  these  volatile  peo- 
ple will  be  gravely,  animatedly,  yet  dispassionately 
discussing  an  abstract  problem  of  psychology,  of 
conduct,  of  morals.  That  now  and  again  they 
revert  to  a  man  or  a  woman,  to  Armand  or 
Germaine,  does  not  alter  the  case.  What  has 
really  interested  them,  what  they  will  discuss 


218       THE  FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

until  some  more  apposite  topic  distracts  them, 
might  just  as  well  have  been  suggested  by  a  ser- 
mon, or  by  an  open  lecture  at  the  Sorbonne,  as 
by  a  dramatic  performance  which  had  seemed  to 
you,  in  certain  respects,  abominable. 

In  almost  every  instance,  meanwhile,  at  least 
nowadays,  such  general  discussions  as  arise  from 
novels  or  plays  will  be  found  to  turn  on  the 
fundamental  point  which  we  have  been  trying  to 
keep  in  mind.  There  is  a  fixed  system  —  social, 
religious,  moral,  whatever  you  wiU.  The  accepted 
conventions  of  this  would  relentlessly  repress  the 
impulses  of  some  individual ;  and  very  probably 
they  would  go  far,  at  the  same  time,  to  repress 
or  to  contradict  some  impulses  common  to  the 
human  race.  To  make  this  situation  clear,  an 
author  has  stated  it  in  concrete  terms  of  Armand 
and  Germaine.  Armand  and  Germaine,  however, 
bear  to  the  point  at  issue  no  more  comprehensive 
relation  than  that  borne  to  a  proposition  in  ge- 
ometry by  the  figure  used  to  illustrate  the  reason- 
ing involved.  They  are  necessary  to  the  process ; 
but  once  so  used,  they  remain  important  only  for 
the  precision  of  line  with  which  they  may  have 
been  drawn.  The  real  question  is  whether,  in  a 
case  where  the  rigidity  of  system  and  the  impulse 
of  human  variation  are  at  odds,  the  system  or  the 
individual  should  yield. 


LITERATURE   AND   LIFE        219 

Obviously  and  everywhere  assertions  of  indi- 
viduality are  apt  to  take  licentious  form.  You 
may  illustrate  this  truth,  if  you  prefer,  by  blame- 
less reference  to  the  poetic  license  indulged  in 
by  men  of  letters  impatient  of  academic  restraint. 
How  far  from  dreary  such  purely  literary  discus- 
sion may  become  in  France  anyone  knows  who 
has  read  of  the  devotees  of  classic  tradition  en- 
deavoring, when  "  Hernani "  was  new,  to  suppress 
the  unorthodox  metaphor, 

"  Vous  ^tes  mon  lion,  superbe  et  g^n^reux." 

Without  appreciating  episodes  like  this  you  can 
never  understand  the  French  point  of  view,  when 
systems  and  individuals,  organisms  and  environ- 
ment, come  in  conflict.  But  all  the  distraction 
of  your  attention  in  the  world  to  poetic  license 
can  never  avoid  the  truth  that  the  questions  of 
license  involved  in  such  conflicts  are  apt  rather  to 
involve  license  of  personal  conduct,  such  as  our 
English  habit  is  disposed  not  to  talk  about  in 
general  society. 

Just  here  we  are  confronted  again  with  the 
deep  contrast  between  the  intellectual  candor 
of  the  French  and  the  personal  candor  of  English- 
speaking  peoples.  In  certain  respects,  one  some- 
times conjectures,  the  French  are  less  scrupu- 
lous concerning  statements  of  concrete  fact  than 


220       THE  FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

our  own  convictions  would  generally  approve* 
When,  on  the  other  hand,  the  matter  in  question 
is  either  a  general  proposition,  or  the  implica- 
tions which  it  involves,  they  become  unflinching. 
With  us  the  case  is  precisely  the  opposite.  In 
discussing  concrete  fact  we  mercilessly  demand 
truth  from  ourselves  and  from  everybody  else; 
but  when  it  comes  to  scrutinizing  general  prop- 
ositions, we  permit  ourselves  a  degree  of  mental 
indolence  regrettable  in  the  eyes  of  our  alertly 
intellectual  neighbors  ;  and  when  the  further 
question  arises  of  what  our  general  propositions 
may  logically  imply,  we  are  not  only  disinclined 
to  think  it  out,  but  even  resentful  if  we  are  pressed 
to  do  so.  In  a  specific  case,  the  right  sort  of  a 
Frenchman  might  be  rather  more  disposed  than 
we  to  assert  the  spotlessness  of  a  lady  who  had 
the  misfortune  to  be  discovered  in  an  equivocal 
situation ;  on  the  other  hand,  he  would  be  far 
more  ready  than  we  to  admit  the  unhappy  truth 
that  wherever  men  and  women  are  gathered 
together  equivocal  situations  frequently  occur. 
^  So  the  French,  to  the  end  of  time,  will  think  us 
hypocritical;  just  as  we,  with  equal  error,  shall 
think  them  mendacious.^:. 

It  is  in  no  small  degree  this  intellectual  can- 
dor of  the  French  which  permits  them,  through- 
out their  literature,  to  deal  with  topics  on  the 


LITERATURE  AND   LIFE        221 

whole  forbidden  among  ourselves;^  Among  other 
things,  it  leads  them  to  assume  as  a  matter  of 
course  what  is  everywhere  true,  namely,  that  the 
most  instantly  suitable  subjects  for  literature  are 
not  the  commonplaces  of  every-day  life^  Other- 
wise a  shopkeeper's  ledger  might  serve  the  pur- 
pose of  a  novel.  Literature,  in  general,  must 
concern  itself  with  interesting  exceptions  to  the 
conmiohplace.^  Of  these  the  most  interesting, 
on  the  whole,  arise  from  the  vagrant  tendencies 
of  affection  between  men  and  women.  If  such 
incidents  were  not  exceptional,  they  would  not  be 
interesting;  you  can  imagine  a  state  of  society 
where  monogamy  might  have  all  the  fascination 
of  romance,  but  that  is  not  the  society  of  Euro- 
pean civilization.  To  deny  these  general  truths 
would  be,  from  the  French  point  of  view,  per- 
verse ;  worse  still,  it  would  be  silly. 

Meanwhile,  there  can  be  little  doubt  that  an- 
other reason  why  the  substance  of  French  litera- 
ture misrepresents  French  life  may  be  found  in 
another  phase  of  French  attachment  to  tradition. 
The  intellectual  candor  of  the  French,  their  insist- 
ent admission  of  generalized  fact,  is  no  new  trait 
of  theirs ;  it  has  persisted  ever  since  they  have 
been  a  nation.  And  though  in  its  present  form, 
which  happens  to  be  intensely  serious  on  the 
surface,  it  may  seem  different  from  what  it  used 


^ 


222       THE  FRANCE   OF   TODAY 

to  be,  the  nature  of  it  stays  much  the  same. 
The  old  folk  tales  of  France,  and  the  like,  are 
full  of  ribald  fun  —  *'  gaiete  gauloise,''  they  some- 
times call  it  now.  France  has  always  had  its 
systems,  and  has  always  admitted  the  persistent 
recurrence  of  exceptions.  Of  old  it  used  to  laugh 
at  them ;  just  now  it  is  disposed  rather  to  phi- 
losophize about  them.  Whether  you  laugh  or 
whether  you  reason  is  a  question  of  mood.  What 
they  reason  about  now  is  what  they  used  to  laugh 
about,  and  what  very  likely  they  will  laugh  about 
again  in  days  to  come.  In  any  event,  it  is  not\ 
only  something  which  their  intellectual  candor  j 
must  admit  to  be  of  perennial  Human  interest ; 
it  is  something  which  the  immemorial  conven- 
tion of  their  race  has  assumed  to  be  the  normal 
subject  of  literature.  The  frailty  of  woman  is  as 
old  as  Eve,  and  the  place  of  it  in  French  litera- 
ture has  analogies  to  the  place  of  Harlequin  in 
Christmas  pantomime. 

All  of  these  considerations  should  help  us  to- 
ward the  end  of  which  we  are  now  in  search  — 
the  understanding  of  why  the  life  of  modern 
France,  when  you  come  to  know  it,  seems  so 
different  from  the  same  life  as  set  forth  in  the 
most  highly  developed  Uterature  of  modern  Eu- 
rope. We  have  seen  that  convention  has  much 
to  do  with  this  paradox.     We  have  seen,  as  well. 


^ 


LITERATURE   AND  LIFE        223 

^hat  it  springs  in  no  small  degree  from  the  in-  I/" 
sistent  intellectual  candor  of  the  French.  We 
have  seen  that  this  candor,  or  any  semblance  of 
it,  involves  the  admission  that  the  subject  of  lit- 
erature in  general  should  rather  be  interesting 
exceptions  to  a  rule  than  the  rule  itself.  And 
thus  we  find  ourselves  led  toward  a  conclusion, 
or  at  least  a  suggestion,  astonishingly  remote 
from  our  original  assumption.  There  is  reason,  in 
short,  for  beUeving  that  the  pervasive  hcentious- 
ness  of  literature  in  France  so  far  from  proves 
licentiousness  to  be  the  rule  of  French  life  that 
it  may  rather  be  held  to  imply  the  reverse. 

Another  consideration,  on  which  we  have  not 
yet  touched,  should  strengthen  this  conclusion. 
As  the  whole  world  knows,  the  French  are  not 
a  sluggish  people.  They  are  probably  the  most 
alertly  intelligent  in  the  modern  world,  and  this 
both  from  native  impulse  and  from  the  training 
consequent  upon  the  circumstances  of  their  in- 
tensely competitive  lifej.  The  intensity  of  their  ,  ^ 
competition,  so  evident  in  the  details  of  their  » 
university  system,  demands  incessant,  unremit- 
tent,  intellectual  work.  So  does  their  attachment 
to  their  social  system.  A  good  Frenchman  must 
not  only  do  his  utmost  to  maintain  and  to  ad- 
vance his  own  position  in  the  world  ;  he  must 
occupy  himself  as  well  with  the  interests  of  his 


^ 


THE   FRANCE  OF  TODAY 


family.  He  must  provide  for  the  careers  of 
his  sons ;  he  must  provide  for  the  dowries  of  his 
/^  daughters  ;  he  must  see  to  it  that  his  household, 
^  large  or  small,  is  conducted  prudently  ;  he  must 
end  each  year  in  a  little  more  security  than  he 
enjoyed  when  he  began  it.  He  can  never  remit 
his  attention  to  detail.  Well  and  good.  This 
means  that  when  the  day's  work  is  over  he  would 
not  be  human  if  he  were  not  pretty  well  tired 
out.  He  needs  amusement,  diversion,  distrac- 
tion, recreation.  To  recruit  his  powers  of  at- 
tention, he  needs  something  different  from  what 
has  engaged  them  yesterday  and  today,  and 
must  engage  them  again  tomorrow.  He  would 
not  be  French,  either,  if  he  did  not  demand  this 
stimulating  distraction  in  a  rigorously  precise 
form.  He  is  more  fond  of  generalization  than 
we  are,  I  dare  say ;  but  he  likes  to  base  his  gen- 
eralization on  concrete  terms,  and  on  concrete 
terms  of  a  kind  which  shall  readily  hold  his  tired 
attention.  And  what  is  true  of  him  is  just  as 
true  —  perhaps  more  true  still  —  of  his  honest 
and  devoted  wife.  She  would  not  be  French, 
again,  any  more  than  he  would,  if  she  lacked  the 
strong  habit  of  an  intellectual  candor  which  at 
once  admits  the  existence  of  things  we  English- 
men or  Americans  are  apt  to  ignore,  and  main- 
tains the  perhaps  deplorable  but  surely  undeniable 


LITERATURE  AND  LIFE        225 

truth  that  such  things  have  an  enduring  power 
of  exciting  interest,  of  holding  the  attention,  of 
making  us  forget  for  the  instant  such  monotonies 
as  have  engaged  us  all  day  and  as  must  engage 
us  again,  day  after  day,  until  the  melancholy 
day  arrives  when  they  send  out  notice  of  the 
fiineral.  As  a  mere  matter  of  recreation,  the 
French  demand  in  their  literature  something 
different  from  what  they  find  in  life — just  as 
Yankee  factory-girls  like  to  read  about  duchesses. 
iThey  turn  instinctively  to  the  ranges  of  fact  least 
familiar  in  their  daily  experience,  and  least  likely 
tQ^strain  their  attention.  Obviously  such  a  range 
of  fact  is  apt  to  be  licentious. 

A  vivid  instance  of  what  I  have  in  mind  was 
lately  told  me  by  a  French  friend  who  has  Uved 
for  some  years  in  America.  During  a  visit  to 
Paris,  he  strayed  into  a  small  popular  theatre, 
frequented  by  petty  shopkeepers  and  the  like. 
At  his  side  he  found  a  stout,  motherly  person, 
whose  daily  duties  were  evidently  absorbing ;  for 
he  could  not  help  overhearing  her  voluble  dis- 
course about  housekeeping,  the  shop,  and  the 
children ;  where  you  could  buy  your  groceries 
cheapest,  what  promised  to  sell  well  or  ill,  in 
terms  of  pocket-money,  and  whether  it  was  nec- 
essary to  buy  Louis  a  thicker  pair  of  shoes,  in 
view  of  his  tendency  to  colds  in  the  head.     The 

16 


226       THE   FRANCE  OF   TODAY 

curtain  rose.  The  one-act  play  proved  to  be 
of  a  freedom  which,  after  my  friend's  prolonged 
habit  of  America,  impressed  him  as  appalling. 
The  good  matron  by  his  side  felt  no  such  scruples. 
Beyond  question,  it  was  very  funny,  and  you 
could  not  help  attending  to  it.  She  laughed 
wath  a  merriment  which  did  your  heart  good. 
And  when  the  curtain  fell,  to  rise  again  in  due 
time  for  a  farce  as  unrestrained  as  the  first,  she 
filled  the  interval  with  the  same  sort  of  devoted 
domestic  chatter  as  had  served  her  for  prologue. 
A  good  soul,  tired  with  assiduous  attention  to 
duty,  she  found  innocent  pleasure  —  and  nothing 
else  —  in  giving  herself  up  to  what  honestly 
amused  her.y  You  could  no  more  feel  her  to  be 
depraved  than  you  could  feel  a  pretty  girl  to  be, 
delighting  in  the  waltz. 

The  phenomenon  is  not  peculiar  to  the  French. 
A  famously  austere  American  senator,  remark- 
able for  conscientious  work  in  Congress,  was 
lately  asserted  by  a  librarian  to  have  been  in  the 
habit  of  reading  himself  out  of  torpor  in  books 
which  would  have  made  his  constituents  and  his 
family  shudder.  This  does  not  mean  that  he 
ever  relaxed  his  conduct,  for  an  instant,  either  in 
public  or  in  private ;  it  rather  proves  the  con- 
trary.-4-SQ#,  J  believe,  the  persistent  irregularities 
of  conduct  incessant  in  French  literature  may 


LITERATURE   AND   LIFE        227 

most^  sensibly  be  regarded  as  the  intellectual 
counterparts  of  lives  benumbing  in  their  general 
regularity.  \ 

One  phase  of  this  regularity  must  often  sur- 
prise a  foreigner  who  finds  himself  in  a  company 
of  Frenchmen  familiarly  talking  to  each  other. 
I  can  best  illustrate  what  I  mean  by  an  anecdote 
told  me  by  an  American  in  Paris.  He  Uked  to 
read  French  novels,  and  believed  himself  by  no 
means  squeamish.  Certain  incidents  in  the  works 
of  one  popular  French  author,  however,  had  been 
too  much  for  him.  The  man,  he  had  been  given 
to  understand,  was  personally  respectable.  It 
seemed  incredible.  He  put  him  on  his  unwritten 
indevC  eocpurgatorius.  Wherefore,  he  was  startled 
one  evening  to  find  himself  sitting  next  to  this 
deplorable  person  at  a  dinner-party.  The  aspect 
of  the  novelist  was  irreproachable.  His  per- 
sonahty  and  manners  were  attractive.  The  talk 
was  general  and  animated.  It  began  with  the 
soup,  and  kept  on  till  late  in  the  evening.  All 
the  company,  but  my  friend,  it  happened,  were 
French.  He  took  little  part  in  the  conversa- 
tion, partly  for  want  of  command  of  their  fluent 
language.  To  all  appearances,  they  talked  with 
perfect  freedom,  saying  whatever  came  into 
their  heads.  The  novelist  talked  most  of  all. 
My  friend  avers  that  he  never  passed  a  more 


228       THE   FRANCE   OF   TODAY 

delightful  evening.  And  it  was  only  after  he 
got  home  that  he  quite  appreciated  an  astonish- 
ing fact.  Through  all  the  hours  when  these 
Frenchmen  had  been  talking  together,  not  a 
word  had  been  uttered  which  might  not  have 
been  uttered  in  the  presence  of  a  young  girl. 
So  far  as  my  friend's  memory  could  serve  him  he 
had  never  enjoyed  quite  this  experience  among 
any  company  of  English-speaking  men.  He  re- 
minded me,  with  a  sigh,  of  a  Une  from  an  imi- 
tation of  Elizabethan  comedy  in  which  1  had 
indulged  myself  some  years  ago :  "  When  knew 
you  a  company  of  men  left  to  themselves  but 
that  straight  they  fell  to  talking  bawdy  ? " 

And  yet  not  only  the  novelist  who  had  been 
the  leader  of  this  animated  talk  about  politics, 
and  fine  art,  and  philosophy,  and  travel,  had 
written  things  which  no  self-respecting  American 
would  sign;  others  in  the  company  had  sinned 
likewise,  if  not  so  deeply.  The  conclusion  at 
which  my  friend  arrived  I  am  inclined  to  think 
true.^The  French  are  given  to  writing  things 
which  they  would  not  say  ;  English-speaking  men 
are  given  to  saying  things  which  they  would  not 
write...  Comments  on  a  truth  like  this  may  be 
various.  Six  of  one,  you  might  conclude,  and 
half  a  dozen  of  the  other ;  it  is  only  that  people 
of  decent  life  approach  things  differently,  accord- 


LITERATURE   AND   LIFE        229 

ing  as  they  are  familiar  with  the  customs  of 
French  society  or  of  ours.  A  good  American 
woman  in  whose  presence  I  ventured  to  make 
this  remark  declared  it  to  signify,  in  absurdly 
minced  words,  that  all  the  men  in  question  ought 
to  be  ashamed  of  themselves.  I  should  be  the 
last  to  deny  this  proposition  as  a  matter  of 
principle.  I  refrained  from  pointing  out  to  her 
that  if  I  had  assented  to  it  as  a  statement  of 
fact  I  should  have  exposed  myself — at  least  in 
the  just  opinion  of  such  intellectual  candor  as 
prevails  among  the  French  —  to  the  charge  of 
English-speaking  hypocrisy. 

Still  another  consideration  may  throw  light  on 
the  conventional  subjects  of  literature  in  France. 
As  we  reminded  ourselves  when  we  were  dis- 
cussing the  structure  of  French  society,  the  artists 
of  France  —  using  the  term  artists  in  its  most 
comprehensive  sense  —  are  a  class  apart.  With 
us  the  word  artist  suggests  a  man  who  devotes 
his  life  to  the  art  of  painting.  In  French,  I 
believe,  it  has  hardly  any  such  limitation ;  it 
implies,  to  begin  with,  only  that  a  man's  life  is 
devoted  rather  to  contemplation  and  expression 
than  to  the  kind  of  labor  which  the  political 
economies  of  my  youth  used  to  call  productive. 
An  artist's  effort  is  not  to  increase  the  wealth  of 
society,  but  to  enlarge  its  intelligence,  and  above 


230       THE  FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

all  to  intensify  its  assthetic  pleasure.  Painter, 
sculptor,  architect,  musician,  actor,  man  of  letters 
—  it  is  all  one.  There  are  grades,  no  doubt,  in 
the  hierarchy  of  art,  just  as  there  are  in  the 
learned  professions  or  in  the  army.  At  one  time 
one  service  may  be  the  more  in  fashion ;  at 
another  time  the  same  may  be  the  less  favored. 
These  shades  of  difference  do  not  obscure  the 

(     great  difference  of  all.     The  world  of  fine  art 
in   France  is  a  world  by  itself  with  a  pretty 

\  distinct  existence  of  its  own. 
\  Artists  may  be  of  noble  origin ;  oftener  they 
come  of  bourgeois  stock ;  sometimes  they  spring 
from  the  common  people.  Once  artists,  they 
belong  first  of  all  to  their  own  class  —  I  had  al- 
most said  their  own  caste.  In  their  art  they  are 
consummately  serious,  untiringly  industrious.  In 
superficial  aspect,  their  lives  are  as  orderly,  as 
regular,  as  punctilious  as  the  lives  of  anybody 
else.  Beneath  the  surface,  however,  the  question 
of  regularity  is  in  many  aspects  a  matter  of  more 
indifference  than  is  the  case  with  people  of  similar 
character  among  ourselves.  I  permitted  myself 
to  compare  this  state  of  things  with  what  we 
generally  recognize  in  America  to  be  the  case 
with  the  dramatic  profession.  So  long  as  an 
actor  plays  well  and  conducts  himself  agreeably, 
we  ask  fewer  questions  about  him  than  about 


LITERATURE   AND   LIFE        231 

other  people.  And  if  our  taste  lead  us  away 
from  a  society  where  questions  might  perhaps  be 
awkward,  we  are  not  quite  disposed  to  cultivate 
his  acquaintance  in  private.  This  is  no  reflection 
on  his  numerous  excellences  of  heart.  It  is  only 
a  candid  admission  that  his  standards  of  daily 
conduct  will  probably  differ  —  for  better  or  for 
worse  —  from  those  which  we  have  happened  to 
find  most  congenial.  _^ 

The  case  of  a  father  and  a  son  almost  equally 
eminent  in  the  French  literature  of  the  nineteenth 
century  will  illustrate  what  I  mean.  Among 
the  perennial  books  are  the  novels  of  Alexandre 
Dumas.  If  you  ever  think  them  trivial  when 
you  are  well,  turn  when  you  are  ill  to  "  Monte 
Cristo  "  or  "  The  Three  Musketeers,"  and  you  will 
never  want  other  diversion.  As  is  generally 
known,  the  life  of  Dumas,  while  full  of  amiability, 
was  not  conspicuously  austere  —  a  fact  which 
has  no  more  bearing  on  the  charm  of  his  narra- 
tive than  the  personal  morals  of  an  opera  singer 
have  on  the  quality  of  the  notes  produced  by 
her  vocal  organs.  You  would  not  have  chosen 
him  as  private  tutor  for  your  sons,  no  doubt ; 
there  it  ends.  The  whole  world  may  forever 
enjoy  his  animated  romances.  You  may  feel, 
however,  a  shade  of  embarrassment  if  they  ask 
you  too  definitely  about  his  son,  the  younger 


282       THE   FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

Alexandre  Dumas.  His  origin,  regular  in  the 
course  of  nature,  was  not  preceded  by  all  the 
legal  formalities  conventionally  assumed  among 
ourselves  to  be  preliminary  to  such  incidents; 
and  the  circumstances  of  his  youth  were  such 
as  to  find  normal  expression  —  at  an  age  when 
most  of  our  boys  are  still  at  college  —  in  "  La 
Dame  aux  Camelias." 

Whatever  the  ultimate  moral  of  this  classic 
work,  no  one  can  deny  its  astonishing  power,  nor 
yet  that  this  power  springs  from  two  qualities 
deeply  characteristic  of  its  author.  It  enlists  your 
sympathy  for  the  moment ;  without  stopping  to 
inquire  whether  you  approve  of  these  people,  or 
agree  with  them,  you  understand  them  and  share 
their  griefs.  More  conspicuously  still,  it  is  appar- 
ently serious;  it  discusses  matters  with  intense 
gravity.  In  this  aspect  it  could  hardly  be  outdone 
by  any  sermon. 

Both  of  these  traits  persisted  throughout  the 
admirable  artistic  career  of  the  younger  Dumas. 
What  is  more,  as  he  grew  in  maturity  he  became 
the  serious  expounder  of  a  moral  code  as  simple 
and  as  sound  as  you  should  find  in  any  ortho- 
dox Sunday-school.  He  preached  it,  no  doubt, 
in  terms  of  his  own,  instinct  with  the  animation 
inseparable  from  lasting  literary  work  in  France. 
He  preached  it,  too,  with  something  of  the  fervor 


LITERATURE   AND   LIFE        233 

which  animates  the  spirits  of  converts  or  of  moral 
discoverers.  The  commonplaces  of  our  nurseries 
blazed  for  him  with  the  splendor  of  new,  self- 
revealing  truth.  His  career  as  an  artist  was 
honorable,  conscientious  and  distinguished.  It 
was  remarkable  for  popularity,  for  endurance, 
and  for  recognition.  Among  the  members  of 
the  Academic  Fran9aise  in  his  time  hardly  any 
was  more  widely  known,  or  more  secure  in  public 
esteem.  As  a  man  of  letters,  he  commanded  not 
only  admiration  but  respect;  and  I  have  been 
given  to  understand  that  he  commanded  them 
equally  from  those  who  had  the  privilege  of 
knowing  him  in  private  life. 

Yet,  from  the  "  Dame  aux  Camelias "  to 
"Denise"  and  "  Francillon,"  he  set  forth  his 
principles  in  terms  of  social  surroundings  and 
conduct  conspicuous  for  irregularity.  He  rose 
from  a  world  of  frank  disrepute,  through  that 
ambiguous  society  to  which  he  gave  the  name 
of  Demi-monde^  to  the  established  social  system 
of  the  middle  and  the  upper  classes  of  France. 
Throughout  he  showed  you  everywhere  the  mis- 
chief which  must  ensue  from  misbehavior,  and 
showed  it  by  means  of  pitiless  detection  and  analy- 
sis thereof.  Partly,  no  doubt,  this  was  a  matter 
of  his  art,  due  to  the  conditions  which  we  have 
already  taken  into  account.     Partly,  on  the  other 


234       THE   FRANCE   OF   TODAY 

hand,  it  seems  a  question  of  his  own  personal  ex- 
perience. Bom  in  the  artist  class,  he  lived  in  it, 
worked  in  it,  and  attained  in  it  a  dignity  respected 
not  only  in  Paris  and  in  France,  but  all  over  the 
world.  Yet  the  facts  of  his  personal  career  might 
almost  be  inferred  from  the  subjects  of  his  art,  as 
we  recalled  them  a  moment  ago.  Much  of  his  life 
was  passed  amid  surroundings  where  vagaries  of 
conduct  are  more  usual  than  most  of  us  habitually 
find  them.  This  would  have  been  true  of  any 
actor  among  ourselves  ;  it  has  nothing  whatever 
to  do  with  his  personal  character  or  principles. 
It  is  true,  in  general,  of  all  artists  in  France  — 
from  the  Academy  to  the  cafes  of  the  Champs 
Elysees.  Anybody,  artist  or  not,  must  generally 
assume  as  normal  the  phase  of  life  he  knows 
best.  Thus  we  have  found  another,  and  a  differ- 
ent, reason  for  the  range  of  topic  which  pervades 
French  literature. 

And  yet,  after  all,  it  is  possible  that  we  have 
long  been  straying  too  far  afield.  We  have  been 
trying  to  account  for  the  wide  differences  between 
French  Ufe  as  one  finds  it  and  French  life  as 
it  is  set  forth  in  the  literature  on  which  foreign 
notions  of  France  are  based.  We  have  discovered 
for  this  difference  various  reasons  —  traditional, 
psychologic,  social.  Very  likely  we  might  better 
have    illustrated  it  by  an   analogous  difference, 


LITERATURE   AND   LIFE         235 

equally  obvious  to  any  foreigner  who  should  first 
travel  in  America  and  then  come  to  know  Amer- 
icans as  they  are.  If  I  may  trust  my  own  ex- 
perience, after  more  than  one  journey  abroad,  the 
most  salient  literary  fact  in  America,  when  you 
view  things  with  a  fresh  eye,  is  the  prevalence  of 
newspapers.  You  see  them  everywhere,  in  every- 
body's hands ;  and  of  late  the  custom  of  filling 
space  with  huge  headlines  has  so  flourished 
that  you  cann,ot  help  remarking  what  they  oflfer 
as  the  principal  subjects  of  interest.  When  I 
last  returned  to  Boston,  after  a  year's  absence, 
this  happened  to  concern  the  identity  of  an  un- 
happy girl  whose  body  had  been  discovered  in 
two  or  three  separate  packages  floating  about  the 
harbor.  Day  by  day  the  accounts  of  this  incident 
were  copiously  illustrated  in  the  newspapers  which 
confronted  you  in  every  public  place.  It  may 
be  taken  as  typical.  Murders,  burglaries,  elope- 
ments, accidents,  rascalities  stare  you  in  the  face, 
in  monstrous  type,  morning,  noon,  and  night. 
Railway  trains  are  full  of  people  with  their  noses 
buried  in  these  savory  sheets.  Any  stranger  might 
well  infer  this  America  of  ours  to  be  a  land  where 
his  most  respectable  neighbor  would  probably 
be  a  pickpocket.  Wealth  here  appears  to  be  re- 
garded as  the  result  of  robbery  applied  to  pur- 
poses of  deliberate  corruption.    Political  eminence 


236       THE  FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

seems  to  be,  at  best,  demagogic  arrogance  devot- 
ing itself  to  oppression  of  the  deluded  poor.  The 
principal  occupation  of  those  who  purvey  food  is 
presented  in  the  light  of  an  endeavor  to  strike  a 
working  balance  between  rapacity  and  poisoning. 
And  so  on.  I  do  not  intentionally  exaggerate  the 
probable  impression  produced  on  any  foreigner 
by  the  muck-raking  and  the  yellow  journals  now 
so  popular  throughout  the  United  States  of 
America. 

In  the  matter  of  taste,  nothing  can  be  said  for 
this  phase  of  depravity.  Psychologically,  on  the 
other  hand,  it  is  both  interesting  and  instructive. 
It  is  only  a  vulgar  example  of  the  same  human 
impulse  which,  in  anything  but  vulgar  form,  may 
be  detected  in  the  topics  most  frequent  through- 
out the  standard  Hterature  of  France.  The  in- 
ference to  be  drawn  from  it  is  not  that  you  are 
in  the  presence  of  a  society  so  corrupt  as  to  be 
obviously  on  the  verge  of  dissolution.  It  is 
rather  that  tired  human  beings,  fatigued  by  lives 
of  conscientious  regularity,  find  diversion  in  con- 
templating something  different  from  the  monot- 
onies of  their  daily  routine.  .  Literature  affords 
them  this  chance.  In  France,  the  literature  has 
great  intrinsic  merit ;  in  America,  it  has  only  the 
ephemeral  vivacity  of  popular  journalism.  In 
both  cases  its  relation  to  every-day  life  is  about 


LITERATURE   AND   LIFE        237 

the  same.  It  sets  forth  irregularities,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  counterbalancing  the  benumbing  torpor 
of  recurrent  regularity.  If  you  imagine  other- 
wise, you  will  fall  into  the  fatal  error  of  supposing 
the  exception  to  be  the  rule. 

At  least,  I  hope,  the  manner  in  which  I  have 
tried  to  set  forth  this  analogy  will  serve  to  define 
my  purpose.  This  has  not  been  in  any  sense 
apologetic.  I  have  not  meant  either  to  com- 
mend or  to  condemn  the  subjects  most  frequent 
in  French  literature,  any  more  than  I  have  meant 
to  praise  or  to  blame  the  course  at  present  taken 
by  the  daily  newspapers  of  America.  I  have 
attempted  only  to  point  out  the  likeness  be- 
tween a  paradox  which  we  all  understand  and  one 
which  has  generally  misled  us.  American  life  is 
not  such  as  American  newspapers  would  lead 
a  stranger  to  infer.  Neither  does  French  life 
seem  such  as  strangers  infer  who  know  it  only 
from  French  novels.  In  each  case  the  facts  set 
forth  are  substantially  true;  in  each  case  they 
are  comparatively  unusual ;  in  each  the  vast 
strength  of  social  regularity  is,  for  the  moment, 
ignored.  In  each,  as  one  grows  to  know  the 
nation  better,  this  strength  proves  so  vital,  so 
incessant,  that  in  generalizing  the  life  which  it 
animates  one  is  apt  to  think  of  little  else. 

For  human  life  everywhere  is  a  conflict  be- 


238       THE   FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

tween  good  forces  and  evil  —  constructive  and 
destructive.  It  is  the  same  with  physical  organ- 
isms, with  moral,  with  social.  Without  the  evil 
it  could  not  exist;  without  the  good  it  could 
not  persist  anywhere. 


VI 

THE  QUESTION  OF  RELIGION 

SO  far  we  have  touched  Uttle  on  matters 
of  controversy.  I  have  tried  to  give  s6me 
account  of  the  means  by  which  the  French 
temperament  was  brought  to  my  knowledge  —  of 
the  universities,  society,  and  family  life.  I  have 
tried  to  analyze  this  temperament  —  if  analysis 
be  not  too  pretentious  a  term  for  my  attempt  to 
point  out  how  the  intense  love  of  system  preva- 
lent in  France  combines  with  the  intellectual 
candor  of  the  French  to  excite  incessant,  honest, 
passionate  mutual  misunderstanding  among  them. 
And  I  have  done  my  best  to  explain  why  the 
\  •  impression  of  modern  France  which  any  stranger 
would  derive  from  French  literature  is  different! 
from  that  which  he  would  derive  from  personal 
contact  with  the  French  life  of  today.  It  would 
be  inconceivable  that  my  comments  should  com- 
mand everybody's  agreement.  They  have  in- 
volved too  intricate  a  combination  of  opinion 
with  fact  to  avoid  vagary  and  perhaps  serious 
error.  But  they  have  not  brought  us  to  dangerous 


V 


240       THE  FRANCE   OF   TODAY 

ground.  At  worst,  they  have  been  efforts  to 
make  ourselves  sympathetically  understand  the 
nature  of  an  intensely  interesting  foreign  people, 
strange  yet  friendly,  instantly  and  incessantly 
attractive.  In  such  case,  errors  of  observation 
or  blunders  of  opinion,  even  if  not  quite  negli- 
gible, should  lead  to  nothing  more  disturbing 
than  friendly  critical  correction. 

With  the  matters  to  which  we  now  come,  the 
case  is  different.  Religious  questions  and  politi- 
cal, even  when  they  chance  not  to  seem  burning, 
are  never  free  from  a  smouldering  fire,  which  at 
any  moment  may  burst  into  flame.  This  is 
particularly  the  case  among  a  people  so  intense 
as  the  French  in  devotion  to  system.  And  there 
has  rarely  been  a  period  in  their  history  when 
discussion  of  religion  or  politics  has  stirred  them 
more  deeply  than  is  the  case  now.  There  are  far- 
reaching  questions  at  issue,  serious  principles  at 
stake.  To  earnest  men  engaged  in  such  contro- 
versy, the  lines  seem  sharply  drawn,  as  was  the 
case  among  ourselves,  forty  years  ago,  during  the 
terrible  national  trial  of  our  Civil  War.  Who- 
ever believes  himself  right  in  his  conclusions  must 
inevitably  believe  himself  morally  right,  ready  to 
sacrifice  all  things  else  to  some  absolute  higher 
law.  Whoever  is  thus  inspired  must  need  more 
self-control  than  most  of  us  can  exert  if  he  would 


THE   QUESTION   OF  RELIGION    241 

conceive  opponents  to  be  anything  but  wicked 
—  perhaps  perversely,  more  probably  with  a  de- 
liberate blindness  which  enhances  their  deserts 
of  indignation.  It  is  hard,  accordingly,  to  ap- 
proach such  questions  at  all  without  seeming 
to  take  sides.  The  more  impartial  one  tries  to 
be,  the  greater  one's  danger.  For  when  you  take 
neither  side,  in  any  passionate  controversy,  each 
side  will  generally  hold  that  you  are  taking  the 
other. 

Yet  nothing  could  be  further  from  my  pur- 
pose, or  indeed  from  my  just  pretensions.  It  was 
as  a  friendly  visitor  that  I  knew  the  French  dur- 
ing the  year  I  passed  among  them.  Throughout 
that  year  questions  of  religion  and  of  politics, 
deeply  intermingled,  were  obviously  burning. 
They  were  confused,  too,  and  complicated. 
Friends  who  were  equally  cordial,  and  who 
equally  commanded  my  respect,  took  opposite 
sides.  To  have  believed  either  side  wholly  in 
the  right  would  have  been  to  fail  in  sympathy 
with  the  other.  That  would  have  demanded  far 
greater  knowledge,  far  more  experience  than 
mine.  The  one  experience  I  found  unavoidable, 
incessant,  stimulating,  was  that  of  perceiving 
how  the  French  temperament  was  affected  by 
questions  which  stirred  it  to  the  depths.  Cer- 
tain considerations,  broadly  general,  thus  came 

16 


242       THE   FRANCE   OF   TODAY 

to  form  themselves  in  my  mind ;  and  they  have 
since  tended  to  grow  somewhat  more  definite. 
It  is  these,  and  nothing  more  final,  which  I  shall 
try  to  set  forth. 

To  begin  with,  one  can  hardly  come  to  know 

the  French  as  friends  without  acknowledging 

^    ,     them  to  be,  as  a  people,  genuinely  and  deeply 

I  ^^ religious.     This  term  itself  may  be  misleading. 

1^^  ^  It  is  apt,  anywhere,  to  associate  itself  so  closely 
^  with  the  formulas  of  some  precise  creed  that, 
with  any  of  us,  it  may  half  unconsciously  begin 
to  imply  them.  To  a  native  Yankee,  who  can 
still  remember  old  times,  for  example,  the  word 
"  religious  "  can  hardly  fail  to  suggest  a  more  or 
less  willing  habit  of  listening  to  two  long  ser- 
mons every  Sunday,  and  of  saying  your  prayers 
before  you  get  into  bed.  Such  associations,  rev- 
erend and  helpful  though  they  may  often  be, 
somewhat  distract  us  from  the  fundamental  fact 
which  the  word,  in  its  wider  sense,  must  every- 
where stand  for. 

We  human  beings  pass  our  little  years  of 
mortal  consciousness  in  a  sunny,  shadowy  world 
of  which  we  know  not  either  the  beginning  or  the 
end.  We  waken,  as  we  grow,  to  knowledge  of 
the  facts  about  us  —  our  fellow  men  and  the  con- 
ditions which  surround  us  all.  We  come,  per- 
haps, to  understand  something  more  than  our  own 


THE   QUESTION   OF   RELIGION    243 

experience  could  tell  us.  History,  for  example, 
and  science  bring  us  face  to  face  with  men  and 
with  affairs,  with  strange  aspects  of  life,  of  mat- 
ter, of  force,  i5uch  as  could  never  have  revealed 
themselves  to  us  in  the  flesh.  V  But,  far  as  these 
enlightening  perceptions  may  go,  they  can  never 
take  us  beyond  the  state  we  may  best  understand 
by  recalling  our  crescently  conscious  childhood. 
A  child  finds  himself  in  a  world  where  he  can 
seem  to  control  a  little  of  the  immensity  surging 
all  about  him  —  his  toys,  perhaps,  and  his  little 
brother.  More  of  this  immensity  must  control 
him  —  his  parents,  their  means,  the  horse  which 
he  can  drive  if  harnessed,  but  which  proves  too 
big  for  him  to  bridle.  Beyond  the  little  circum- 
stances of  his  daily  life,  there  lies  for  him  infini- 
tude. It  lies  beyond  us  all  —  everywhere,  no 
matter  how  far  any  of  us  may  fancy  that  he  has 
forced  his  way  toward  it.  And  death  is  about 
us  everywhere,  indefinite,  inexorable  ;  they  tell  us 
that  it  awaits  the  planet,  as  surely  as  it  awaits 
any  fly  whose  buzzing  may  worry  us.  Earth  itself 
has  only  a  little  while  of  conscious  and  separate 
existence,  comparable  to  such  existence  as  we 
know,  each  for  himself.  But  mortality  does  not 
comprise  everything.  In  mortal  space  there  are 
stars  beyond  stars,  moving  together  in  obedience 
to    some   vast    immensity    of    force.      Beyond 


244       THE   FRANCE   OF   TODAY 

them,  as  beyond  the  little  child,  surges  some- 
thing else,  forever  inaccessible  to  merely  human 
ken.  What  it  is  we  may  never  know ;  but  we 
may  always  believe.  The  beliefs  of  humanity, 
as  they  have  phrased  themselves  in  creeds  and 
systems,  have  been  numberless.  They  have 
ranged  from  adoration  of  brute  beasts  to  the 
most  ethereal  concepts  of  mystical  philosophy. 
The  truth  which  inspires  them  all  reveals  itself 
in  the  simplest,  the  most  inevitable  of  human 
perceptions.  There  is  beyond  us  all  an  influence 
more  vast,  more  potent  than  we  can  ever  be. 
Recognize  this,  and  you  will  know  what  religion 
means. 

The  terms  in  which  you  express  your  religion 
may  well  seem  terribly  mistaken  to  other  men, 
just  as  theirs  may  seem  to  you.  Throughout 
history,  the  devotees  of  one  creed  bow  down  to 
the  devils  of  the  next.  What  the  passing  fashion 
of  our  time  calls  the  course  of  religious  evolution 
is  everywhere  marked  by  the  fragments  of  de- 
throned idols,  be  they  stocks  and  stones,  or  mere 
formulas  of  language,  dead  and  dying.  But  re- 
ligions, even  though  outworn  and  abominated,  are 
religions  still.  They  leave  their  traces,  too ;  which 
shall  guide  you  everywhere  to  the  gates  of  eter- 
nity. In  moods  like  this,  forgetting  all  else,  you 
find  yourself  on  the  same  threshold  whether  you 


THE   QUESTION   OF   RELIGION    245 

be  penetrating  the  dim  halls  of  some  deserted 
temple  on  the  Nile,  or  watching  the  sunset  glow 
on  the  ruin  of  the  Parthenon,  or  reading  the  Eng- 
lish Bible,  or  marvelling  at  the  vital  exuberance 
of  some  soaring  French  cathedral. 

A  deep  intensity  of  vitality  makes  the  religious 
architecture  of  old  France  more  memorable  than 
any  other  in  Europe.  I  You  may  well  forget  the 
details  of  structure  and  of  ornament,  dear  to 
lovers  of  historical  monuments.  You  may  find 
the  images  even  of  the  masterpieces  fused  or 
fusing  in  your  fancy,  till  they  grow  flickering, 
phantasmagoric.  They  will  never  fade  into  life- 
lessness.  Rather,  you  grow  always  more  wonder- 
ingly  aware  of  how  measureless  was  the  aspiration 
of  mediaeval  France.  Even  the  ponderous  arches 
of  the  oldest  time  do  not  bend  under  the  weight 
they  were  made  to  bear.  Instead,  they  lift 
themselves  upward,  bursting  into  crescent  efflo- 
rescence of  rude,  splendid  sculpture.  They 
thrust  their  points  skyward,  soon ;  letting  the 
light  of  heaven  stream  through  the  lancets  and 
the  wheels  which  open,  like  flowers,  in  the  thin- 
ning walls.  The  spaces  fill  themselves  with 
glories  of  color,  enriching  the  very  sunshine  with 
austere  images  of  patriarchs,  of  saints,  of  angels, 
of  the  Blessed  Virgin,  of  Our  Lord  himself.  The 
aspiration  ranges  higher  and  higher  still,  unweary- 


246       THE   FRANCE   OF   TODAY 

ing,  superhuman.  The  groins  and  the  arches, 
the  traceries  and  the  carven  flowers,  writhe  hke 
leaves  or  tendrils,  until  they  begin  to  lose  the 
strength  they  once  drew  from  roots  deep  in  the 
heart  of  solid  earth.  You  feel  them  trembling, 
quivering,  vanishing  at  last.  Yet  all  this  luxuri- 
ance of  growth  has  still  surged  upward.  It  is  as 
if  you  had  watched  the  life  of  some  forest  tree, 
miraculously  comprising  within  the  scope  of  hu- 
man sight  the  years  and  the  ages  of  its  increase 
from  sapling  to  giant,  alive  to  the  very  tip  of 
each  quivering  leaf.  The  end  of  growth  must 
come,  of  course ;  but  when  you  have  watched  to 
the  end,  your  eyes  are  still  turned  more  search- 
ingly  than  ever  towards  the  heavens  above  and 
the  eternities.  The  splendor  of  the  exuberance 
which  has  distracted  them  a  thousand  times  only 
reminds  you  of  what  exhaustless  vital  force  was 
needful  to  inspire  growth  so  incessant,  so  deathless 
even  in  ruin. 

Fantastic  enough,  all  this ;  yet  nowise  untrue. 
You  may  smile  at  the  fancy  if  you  will ;  but  you 
cannot  deny  it.  You  may  repine  to  find  that  it 
is  at  once  so  commonplace  and  so  far  from  final. 
So  is  life  itself,  throughout  nature, — repetitory, 
aspiring,  unending.  There  is  only  one  condition 
inevitable  for  its  existence,  a  spark  of  the  force 
which  irradiates  and  animates  the  visible  universe. 


THE   QUESTION   OF  RELIGION    247 

This  may  glow  in  a  fly  or  in  a  blade  of  gi'ass,  in 
a  human  being  or  a  nation  or  a  race.  Everywhere 
on  earth  it  is  environed  with  enemies  sure  at 
last  to  quench  the  potency  of  its  fire.  None  the 
less  its  traces  shall  live.  And  when  these  linger 
in  such  forms  as  have  stirred  us  to  this  reverie, 
we  can  never  fail  to  recognize,  even  though 
we  may  not  penetrate,  their  wondrous  quality. 
There  are  ruined  buildings  as  vital  as  the  sea- 
shells  from  which  their  denizens  withered  away 
long  ago,  to  leave  us  enduring  record  of  beauty. 
Other  ruins  seem  more  like  broken  fragments  of 
such  carving  as  attempts  throughout  time  to 
mimic  the  primal  mastery  of  nature.  There  is 
life  in  both  —  each  in  its  kind ;  but  the  truest 
life,  the  life  most  near  to  the  core  of  that  life 
which  embraces  us  all,  is  recorded  only  in  such 
fervors  as  animated  the  centuries  of  church  build- 
ing throughout  France.  No  people,  no  race  or 
fusion  of  races,  could  have  left  us  works  like 
these,  unless  —  amid  all  the  smothering  and  dis- 
turbing earthiness  of  its  environment  —  it  had 
been  dominant  with  the  power  of  religion. 

But  the  days  of  church-building  are  long  past, 
you  may  say,  and  forever.  No  doubt  that  form 
of  expression  is  no  longer  living.  We  are  fallen 
on  other  times,  and  our  fathers  were  fallen  there 
for  generations  before  us.     So  they  were;  and 


248       THE   FRANCE   OF   TODAY 

some  of  them  on  the  times  when  the  French 
Protestant  Calvin  —  heretic  or  not,  as  you  will 
—  honestly  set  forth  the  system  of  theology 
which  of  all  those  opposed  to  ancestral  Rome 
has  proved  most  pregnant,  most  nearly  enduring. 
You  may  lament  his  errors,  denounce  them  with 
His  Holiness  himself.  You  cannot  deny  their 
religious  vitality  in  times  when  the  force  of  life 
had  subsided  from  the  bodily  masonry  of  the 
churches.  Calvinism  lingers  still,  at  the  life- 
roots  of  our  own  far-off  America.  There  was 
religion  too,  unrecognizable  though  its  featured 
semblance  may  seem,  in  that  chilled  recoil  from 
unreasoned  dogma  which  throughout  France  pre- 
ceded and  precipitated  the  final  convulsions  of 
the  eighteenth  century.  And  the  better  you 
know  the  French,  even  to  this  day,  the  more 
surely  you  grow  to  feel  that,  in  their  inner  hearts, 
they  are  wonderfully  religious  still. 

A  vivid  memory  of  my  childhood  has  never 
faded.  During  the  last  years  of  the  Second  Em- 
pire I  was  taken  for  the  first  time  to  Paris. 
The  brilliancy  of  that  vanished  epoch  may  have 
been  tinsel;  but  surely  it  gleamed  in  the  full 
sunshine,  —  which  same  sunshine  illuminated  a 
world  that  looked  bright  and  naughty.  Even 
a  boy  of  ten  or  twelve  could  feel  imperial  Paris 
alluringly  earthy,  could  find  the  far  from  spiritual 


THE   QUESTION   OF   RELIGION    249 

airs  of  Offenbach  fitly  filling  the  atmosphere  of 
his  fancy  as  he  was  driven  along  the  still  gay 
boulevards.  At  the  end  of  them  stood  the  Made- 
leine, just  as  it  stands  to-day.  One  morning  I 
was  taken  there,  to  hear  the  music  of  some  reli- 
gious ceremony.  In  the  course  of  this,  there  was 
a  procession  of  the  clergy,  perhaps  to  or  from  the 
sacristy.  I  remember  of  it  only  the  marvellous 
impression  made  on  me  by  the  face  of  a  priest 
who  seemed  the  chief  personage.  To  me  the 
rest  had  been  mere  pageantry  ;  this  grave,  gentle 
countenance  was  like  that  of  a  saint,  of  a  being 
from  some  better  world  than  I  had  ever  quite 
dreamed  of.  We  were  in  a  crowded  church,  of 
course.  A  lady  near  us  overheard  some  words 
of  mine,  as  this  unforgotten  figure  passed  us. 
She  turned,  and  spoke  very  kindly  in  English. 
She  was  glad,  she  said,  that  we  had  seen  him  ;  she 
knew  him  ;  he  was  as  beautiful  in  spirit  as  he  was 
in  aspect.  More  still,  that  beauty  of  spirit  was 
more  truly  French  than  the  vanities  which  care- 
less travellers  might  think  the  whole  of  France. 
Anyone  can  see  our  frivolity,  she  said,  but  no 
one  can  know  us  who  does  not  know  our  piety. 

It  has  taken  me  a  good  many  years  to  feel  the 
full  truth  of  those  words.  In  certain  aspects 
I  can  guess  it  stiU  only  from  hearsay.  The  cir- 
cumstances of  my  official  visit  to  France  were 


250       THE   FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

unfavorable  to  intercourse  with  the  French  clergy. 
During  all  the  months  of  my  university  service 
the  policy  of  the  government  was  so  actively 
antagonistic  to  the  Church  that  anything  radical 
was  an  object  of  more  than  usual  clerical  suspi- 
cion ;  and  my  lectures,  in  English  and  concern- 
ing America,  were  a  radical  departure  even  from 
university  tradition.  There  were  a  few  priests, 
here  and  there,  among  my  hearers ;  and  I  came 
pleasantly  to  know  a  very  few.  In  general,  how- 
ever, they  were  the  sort  of  Frenchmen  whom  I 
saw  least,  —  those  who  seemed  least  disposed  to 
recognize  my  presence,  unless  politeness  required 
them  to  do  so. 

And  yet,  as  the  months  passed,  I  grew  more 
and  more  to  feel  that,  as  much  as  any  clergy  who 
have  ever  sanctified  the  world,  the  clergy  of  mod- 
ern France  deserve  their  title  of  Reverend.  The 
type  of  them  is  not  such  as  we  imagine  from  old 
memoirs  and  from  Protestant  traditions.  There 
have  been  Richelieus  and  Mazarins,  no  doubt, 
Rohans  and  Talleyrands,  and  perfumed  abbes. 
But,  more  and  more,  as  I  try  to  embody  my 
conception  of  a  French  ecclesiastic  in  some  visi- 
ble form,  I  find  the  image  widely  different  from 
these.  It  takes  the  shape  rather  of  the  devoted 
minister  who  stood  disguised  in  the  public  streets 
when  the  kinswomen  of  Lafayette  were  on  their 


THE   QUESTION   OF  RELIGION    251 

way  to  the  scaffold,  and  made  to  them  from  amid 
the  Revolutionary  rabble  the  mystic  sign  of  the 
last  solemnity  of  the  Church.  It  takes  the  shape 
of  the  simple  Cure  of  Les  Saintes  Maries,  leading 
us  from  his  grim  old  fortified  church  on  the  Med- 
iterranean sands  to  his  own  little  study ;  and 
there,  in  his  rusty  black  robe,  showing  us  docu- 
ments to  prove  his  relics  indisputable,  from  the 
very  days  of  King  Rene.  To  be  sure,  a  gap  of  a 
few  years  had  occurred,  at  the  sad  period  of  the 
Revolution,  when  a  devout  man  was  supposed 
to  have  kept  them  in  reverent  hiding.  Except 
for  this,  there  could  be  no  question  that  they  had 
been  in  their  chests  ever  since  the  Provencjal  king 
found  them  concealed,  five  hundred  years  ago. 
And  if  they  had  not  been  the  true  relics  of  the 
saints  whom  an  angel  steered  in  a  single  night 
fi:om  the  Holy  Land  to  the  delta  of  the  Rhone, 
why  should  they  ever  have  been  concealed  in  the 
safe  hiding-place  where  good  King  Rene  discov- 
ered them,  as  his  seal  attests  ?  And  so  on.  The 
gypsies  flock  thither  still,  to  pray  at  the  shrine 
of  black  Saint  Sara,  the  servant  of  the  holy 
Maries.  There  is  a  painted  offering,  too,  at 
the  shrine,  showing  how,  about  1590,  a  boy 
fell  from  the  roof  of  the  church,  and  remem- 
bering to  confide  himself  to  the  Maries,  came 
to  earth  uninjured  and  in  a  standing  posture. 


252       THE  FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

Nothing  but  miracle  could  have  saved  him,  the 
priest  opined.  Such  scattered  evidence,  incom- 
plete though  it  were,  he  concluded,  made  it  more 
reasonable  to  believe  the  pious  tale  than  to 
doubt  it.  Just  then  and  there,  one  could  under- 
stand what  he  meant ;  could  believe  at  least  in 
his  simple-hearted  sincerity  ;  could  reverence  the 
faithfulness  of  his  ministrations ;  could  fall  to  won- 
dering whether  his  childish  wisdom  might  not, 
after  all,  be  deeper  than  the  wisdom  of  what  we 
fancy  our  maturities.  He  made  the  Abb^  Con- 
stantin  of  Halevy  seem  no  creature  of  fancy. 
Both  alike,  in  their  simple  goodness,  their  unques- 
tioning acceptance  of  vocation  group  themselves 
as  lesser  brothers  of  that  saintly  figure  in  the 
Madeleine,  when  Napoleon  III  still  ruled  his 
restive  empire  from  the  unruined  palace  of  the 
Tuileries. 

Just  who  this  clergyman  was,  whose  counte- 
nance has  lingered  in  memory  all  my  life,  I  can- 
not be  sure.  I  believe,  however,  that  he  was  the 
same  Cure  of  the  Madeleine  who,  a  few  years 
later,  was  shot  in  Paris  by  the  order  of  the  Com- 
mune, after  some  such  form  of  trial  as  those 
idealistic  regenerators  of  their  country  invented 
to  dignify  their  summary  proceedings.  He  was 
not  alone  in  his  martjTdom,  you  will  remember. 
The  Archbishop  of  Paris  suffered  at  the  same 


THE   QUESTION   OF   RELIGION    253 

time ;  and  this  was  not  the  only  archbishop  done 
to  death  by  Revolutionists  during  the  nineteenth 
century.  Another  fell  before  the  barricades  which 
he  had  confronted,  with  full  sense  of  his  danger, 
in  pursuance  of  his  peace-compelling  charge  — 
descended  to  him  apostolically  from  the  very 
moment  when  the  Holy  Spirit  inspired  the  first 
ministers  of  Our  Lord.  You  shall  find  his  relics, 
and  more  as  well,  treasured  in  the  sacristy  of 
Notre  Dame.  The  splendors  they  show  you  at 
the  same  time  —  the  robes  and  the  jewels,  even 
the  sacred  vessels  admirable  as  works  of  art  — 
seem  tawdry  things  and  trivial ;  but  these  plain 
records  of  how  great  officials  of  the  Church  gave 
up  their  lives  must  stir  you  deep.  Share  their 
faith  or  not,  you  cannot  resist  the  impulse  to 
believe  that  they  have  won  their  right  to  place 
in  the  noble  army  of  Martyrs.  And  you  execrate 
the  wicked  zealots  who  murdered  them  for  their 
conscience'  sake. 

But  then,  if  you  be  of  our  elder  American 
tradition,  and  fall  to  pondering  on  the  glories  of 
martyrdom,  there  will  come  to  you  some  whiff 
from  the  embers  of  Smithfield  fires.  You  will 
find  yourself  thinking  of  Foxe,  and  of  good 
John  Rogers,  burned  in  the  presence  of  his  wife 
and  eleven  young  children,  one  at  the  breast. 
Rowland  Taylor's  memory  will  begin  to  kindle. 


254       THE   FRANCE   OF   TODAY 

and  Hooper's ;  Latimer's,  too,  and  Ridley's,  and 
Cranmer's  —  whose  better  voice  still  sounds  in  the 
deathless  rhythm  of  the  English  Litany.  They 
were  martyrs,  if  ever  martyrs  were ;  and  their 
martyrdom  was  wrought  by  the  devotees  of 
that  very  faith  for  which  these  French  heroes, 
of  another  epoch,  gave  up  life  in  turn.  That 
faith,  too,  dragged  the  corpse  of  Coligny  through 
the  streets  of  Charles  IX's  Paris,  drenched  with 
the  blood  of  Huguenots.  It  has  been  a  wicked 
thing  itself,  that  faith  of  theirs ;  so  our  fathers 
have  taught  us,  from  generation  to  generation. 
Were  the  Communists  so  utterly  wicked,  after 
all,  for  taking  the  shortest  way  to  suppress  the 
propagation  of  its  damnable  errors  ? 

Thus,  hardly  knowing  whither  your  mood  is 
leading,  you  find  yourself  lost  in  the  mazes  of 
the  old  wars  of  religion.  What  these  were  in 
detail  you  have  little  conception,  unless  you  be 
more  learned  in  history  than  most  of  us.  All 
you  can  feel  sure  of  is  that  they  were  infinitely 
complicated  wars  —  so  snarled  with  politics,  ec- 
clesiastical and  temporal,  so  intermingled  with 
every  base  human  passion  and  with  every  weak 
human  frailty,  that,  again  and  again,  there  seems 
a  case  for  those  who  should  assert  them  reli- 
gious only  in  accidental  name.  Tradition  makes 
them  seem  conflicts  of  heavenly  light  with  devil- 


THE   QUESTION   OF  RELIGION    255 

ish  darkness  —  simple  as  sunrise.  Study  shows 
them  murky  —  darkness  clashing  with  darkness, 
into  darkness  darker  still.  Yet  here  and  there 
gleams  of  light  irradiate  the  darkness,  until  some- 
times for  a  little  while  they  seem  to  irradiate 
it  everywhere.  War  is  everywhere  infernal,  not 
least  because  the  noblest  of  war  lets  loose  the 
dogs  of  passion,  to  work  havoc  of  the  spirit, 
even  where  the  spirit  glowed  awhile  most  potent. 
But  supremely  noble  phases  of  the  spirit  stay  im- 
mortal, strengthening  as  the  years  and  the  ages 
purify  their  disembodied  glories.  Such  immor- 
tality is  the  crown  of  martyrdom.  It  is  the 
crown,  as  well,  of  those  who  honestly  sent  the 
martyrs  to  their  stakes,  or  did  them  to  death 
with  powder  and  ball  in  nineteenth-century  Paris. 
The  wars  of  religion  were  religious  for  both  sides. 
It  was  their  faith  —  for  all  their  human  weakness 
—  which  makes  the  memory  of  Huguenots  and 
English  Protestants  heroic  still.  It  was  their 
other  faith  which  makes  us  reverence  the  rehcs 
of  the  dead  churchmen  of  Catholic  France.  It 
was  a  mode  of  faith,  we  can  begin  to  feel  at  last, 
which  led  the  Commune  itself  to  what  have 
seemed  its  acts  of  wanton  wickedness.  Negation 
of  faith  is  itself  faith.  The  wars  of  religion  are 
upon  us  still,  with  all  their  horrors  of  the  flesh 
and  all  their  glories  of  the  spirit.     The  true  con- 


256       THE   FRANCE   OF   TODAY 

flict  is  a  conflict  of  religious  ideals.  They  seem 
irreconcilable.  The  adherents  of  each  believe  it 
absolutely  true ;  if  so,  their  opponents  must  be 
absolutely  in  error.  But  this  does  not  mean  that 
they  must  know  themselves  to  be  so.  Honest 
error  is  almost  as  venerable  as  truth  itself.  Both 
have  the  spiritual  grace  of  utmost  devotion. 

In  one  form  or  another,  such  devotion  pervades 
France  —  far  more  widely  and  more  deeply  than 
one  might  at  first  suspect.  The  intellectual  can- 
dor of  the  French  permits  them  to  recognize  hu- 
man error  with  frankness.  They  do  not  pretend 
that  men,  of  any  shade,  will  probably  conduct 
themselves  like  saints.  But  the  fact  that  men 
err  in  no  wise  implies  them  godless.  Inextri- 
cably good  and  evil,  they  are  impelled  to  recog^ 
nize  the  limits  which  environ  humanity,  and  to 
find  therein  the  force  which  must  control  us  all. 
Thus  comes  faith,  whether  you  will  or  no.  The 
precision  with  which  French  minds  work  makes 
\  ^hem  apt  to  formulate  their  faith  in  pretty  def- 
i  ^nite  terms,  and  then  to  cherish  the  formulas. 
iThus,  perhaps  with  excessive  devotion  to  for- 
nula,  the  French  come  to  range  themselves,  in  the 
natter  of  religion,  pretty  clearly ;  and  thus  arise 
their  tremendous  religious  difficulties. 

To  understand  the  question  of  religion,  as  it 
now  exists  in  France,  we  may  best  conceive  it. 


THE   QUESTION   OF   RELIGION    25? 

I  think,  as  a  dispute  between  Catholics  and  dis- 
senters from  Catholicism.  Among  the  French 
Catholic  Christianity  has  a  triple  strength  —  that 
which  is  inherent  in  it  everywhere,  that  which 
comes  from  prolonged  national  tradition,  and 
that  which  results  from  the  fact  that,  among  the 
better  sort  of  people,  it  has  never  ceased  to  be 
the  fashion.  For  centuries,  of  course,  there  has 
been  dissent  in  France ;  and  two  bodies  of  dis- 
senters have  a  long  and  honorable  history  —  the 
Protestants  and  the  Jews.  What  is  more,  con- 
sidering their  numbers,  each  of  these  bodies  is 
remarkable  in  quality.  Members  of  each  persua- 
sion have  described  it  to  me  as  composed  of  the 
elect  of  the  intellect  —  "  une  elite  de  VintelUgence'* 
In  both  cases  the  phrase  is  defensible.  Jewish 
intelligence  lies  at  the  root  of  that  pervasive 
prejudice  now  called  anti-Semitic ;  your  Jew  can 
generally  outwit  your  Christian  ;  that  is  why 
your  Christian,  being  thick-headed  but  strong  of 
arm,  has  been  disposed  to  keep  him  under  forcibly. 
And  French  Protestants  —  like  all  Protestants 
—  began  by  claiming  right  to  think  for  them- 
selves, in  defiance  of  authority,  and  have  main- 
tained themselves  throughout  their  checkered 
history  by  a  pretty  vigorous  habit  of  reasoning, 
which  has  made  them,  as  a  class,  unusually  robust 
in  mental  process.     Neither  of  these  bodies,  how- 

17 


258       THE   FRANCE   OF   TODAY 

ever,  is  considerable  in  numbers ;  both  together 
would  make  a  group  of  the  elect  hardly  more 
numerous  than  the  elect  of  Calvinism  in  com- 
parison with  its  lost  myriads  of  mankind.  For 
our  purposes,  I  think,  they  may  fairly  be  grouped 
with  the  other  opponents  of  Catholicism,  who 
may  more  properly  be  termed  free-thinkers.  All 
agree  in  denying  the  authoritative  right  of  the 
Catholic  Church  to  control  their  religious  belief 
and  conduct. 

All  alike,  as  we  have  reminded  ourselves,  desire 
to  exercise  their  various  degrees  of  free  thought 
in  a  country  where  the  conception  of  Christianity 
as  identical  with  Catholicism  has  never  yet  been 
deeply  shaken.  Here,  I  think,  is  one  chief  reason 
why  Americans  fail  sympathetically  to  understand 
them.  The  native  tradition  of  America  still  re- 
mains Protestant,  at  least  to  such  degree  that  it 
does  not  readily  grasp  the  principles  of  people 
who  instinctively  accept,  as  evident,  the  claims 
of  ecclesiastical  authority.  These  claims,  too,  are 
not  easy  to  state,  unless  you  happen  to  be  among 
those  authoritatively  charged  with  the  duty  of 
stating  them.  So  far  as  an  outsider  may  venture 
to  set  them  forth,  in  simple  terms,  they  appear  to 
be  somewhat  as  follows. 

The  assertion  of  the  Catholic  Church,  as  I  ap- 
prehend it,  is  that  the  full  spiritual  authority 


THE   QUESTION   OF   RELIGION    259 

requisite  for  salvation  is  resident,  by  divine 
commission,  in  itself.  In  the  coasts  of  Cassarea 
Philippi  Christ  uttered  to  Peter  the  prophetic 
words,  Tu  es  Petrus  et  in  hanc  petram  cedijicaho 
ecdesiam  meam.  And,  when  Christ  was  risen,  the 
Holy  Ghost  descended.  And  Peter  became  the 
first  Bishop  of  Rome.  And  he  ordained  priests 
and  made  other  bishops,  transmitting  to  them 
orders  thus  divinely  holy.  And  such  consecra- 
tion, attending  the  transmission  of  holy  orders 
throughout  the  centuries,  has  carried  with  it,  and 
carries  still,  the  sacred  authority  derived  from 
the  lips  of  Our  Lord.  To  put  this  matter  less 
solemnly,  the  Church  believes  that  from  the  time 
of  its  origin  it  has  possessed,  in  matters  spiritual, 
powers  which  we  may  best  understand  by  compar- 
ing them  with  the  temporal  powers  recognized  as 
inherent  in  duly  established  governments.  These 
are  quite  independent  of  the  persons  who,  from 
time  to  time,  may  be  called  on  to  administer 
them.  It  is  to  be  presumed,  no  doubt,  —  and 
surely  to  be  hoped  at  all  times,  —  that  sovereigns 
and  soldiers,  judges  and  policemen,  will  be  re- 
spectable men,  devoted  to  their  duties.  Whether 
they  are  or  not,  the  authority  of  government  and 
law  remains  unimpaired.  If  they  can  be  proved 
unworthy,  they  can  generally  be  removed  from 
office  by  some  duly  recognized  process.     Until 


260       THE  FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

so  removed,  they  enjoy,  in  temporal  matters,  as 
much  power  as  if  their  virtues  were  inestimable. 
The  fact  that  a  policeman  is  inflamed  with  drink 
does  not  prevent  his  right  to  arrest  you  ;  a  biga- 
mous collector  of  customs  may  still  prevent  you 
from  smuggling.  You  may  regret  that  a  gov- 
ernment is  not  better  served ;  but  so  long  as  it 
persists,  you  are  bound  to  admit  its  authority. 

Something  similar  is  the  case  with  the  Church, 
in  matters  spiritual.  Protestant  temper  has  been 
rather  apt  to  dwell  excessively  on  the  fact  that, 
at  least  from  a  Protestant  point  of  view,  the  per- 
sonal character  of  Catholic  ecclesiastics  has  often 
left  something  to  be  desired.  Historically,  if 
we  may  trust  records,  this  has  been  the  case. 
What  Protestant  or  free-thinking  temper  seems 
never  to  realize,  is  that  this  might  have  been  the 
case  ten  times  as  often  without  in  the  least  im- 
pairing the  validity  of  the  Church.  As  men> 
these  ecclesiastiqs  will  be  called  to  their  final  ac- 
count as  sternly  as  anybody  else.  From  popes 
to  deacons,  they  are  no  more  safe  than  you 
or  I.  There  was  never  an  image  of  the  Last 
Judgment  but  showed  you  shaven  crowns  among 
the  damned.  God  will  punish  his  imdeserving 
officers  as  relentlessly  as  any  earthly  sovereign 
ever  did.  So  long  as  they  hold  their  office,  how- 
ever, they  still  represent  divine  authority. 


THE   QUESTION   OF   RELIGION    261 

Unwelcome  though  such  authoritative  claim 
may  be  to  Protestant  or  free-thinking  sentiment, 
it  is  comprehensible,  and,  what  is  more,  sensible. 
The  Church  professes  to  be  corporately  possessed 
of  spiritual  powers  which  shall  solve  the  spirit- 
ual problems  of  those  who  will  acknowledge  its 
claim  ;  and  no  candid  heretic  can  deny  that, 
throughout  the  centuries  of  its  persistence,  it 
has  proved  to  possess  a  wonderful  spiritual  effi- 
cacy. There  is  something  far  deeper  than  jest  in 
the  familiar  old  tale  of  the  converted  Jew.  In  his 
own  country  he  was  unshaken  by  the  arguments 
of  godly  priests.  But  he  went  to  Rome  when 
things  there  were  at  their  most  godless ;  and  he 
came  back  a  Christian.  It  stood  to  reason,  he 
concluded,  that  a  religion  which  could  maintain 
itself  in  spite  of  such  vagrancies  must  be  authen- 
tically divine.  Conventionally,  of  course,  this 
story  is  received  as  it  was  intended  ;  it  is  thought 
a  ribald  jest.  From  the  point  of  view  of  heretics, 
however,  it  becomes  deeply  instructive.  Oppo- 
nents of  the  Church,  throughout  its  history,  have 
denounced  the  human  infirmities  of  its  officers, 
every  shade  of  whose  misconduct  they  have  em- 
phasized and  dragged  to  light.  These  same  op- 
ponents have  rarely  stopped  to  consider  what 
spiritual  good  the  Church  has  wrought  in  spite  of 
all  its  short-comings.     This  inspired  corporation 


262       THE  FRANCE  OP  TODAY 

professes  to  possess  inalienably  the  divine  power 
not  only  of  guiding  immortal  souls  towards  eter- 
nity, but  of  so  assuring  them  of  salvation  during 
the  passing  years  of  their  embodiment  in  the 
flesh,  that  spiritual  peace  shall  be  almost  attain- 
able on  earth.  It  has  never  for  an  instant  denied 
or  dissimulated  the  errancy  of  human  beings  ;  it 
has  asserted  only  that  none  can  wander  so  far  as 
to  stray  beyond  the  p^le  of  mercy  and  reconcilia- 
tion. And  if  spiritual  efficacy  immeasurable  be 
any  argument  in  support  of  spiritual  claim,  the 
Church  might  rest  its  case  content  on  the  peace 
it  has  brought  for  ages  to  European  human- 
ity. It  has  not  been  the  only  source  of  spiritual 
comfort ;  but  it  has  been  incalculably  the  great- 
est, the  most  sure,  the  most  comprehensive,  the 
most  general.  Mere  common  sense  would  be  at 
pains  to  deny  its  potency,  in  all  matters  of  the 
spirit. 

Mankind  is  something  else  than  spiritual,  how- 
ever ;  something  more  or  less  besides.  We  have, 
the  Church  asserts,  our  immortal  souls.  Beyond 
question  we  have  our  mortal  bodies,  as  well,  dis- 
tractingly  entangled  in  the  meshes  of  this  world. 
The  very  Church  itself  has  its  human  side,  as 
the  personal  errors  of  its  clergy  would  alone 
imply.  This  fact,  indeed,  may  be  held  to  make 
it  most  completely  symbolic,  showing  by  ex- 


THE  QUESTION   OF  RELIGION    263 

ample  through  the  ages  how  divine  truth  can 
persist  undimmed  behind  all  the  mists  of  human 
perversity.  Its  actual  organization,  its  visible 
hierarchy,  is  as  human  as  the  Roman  Empire 
ever  was  temporally.  And  although  the  true 
concern  of  the  hierarchy  is  with  the  spirit,  it  has 
never  long  refrained  from  concerning  itself  also 
with  matters  of  the  flesh.  Supreme  in  religion, 
it  has  been  apt  to  deem  itself  supreme  too  in 
politics ;  and,  on  the  whole,  it  has  not  conducted^ 
public  business  so  happily  as  to  command  the 
reverence  of  dissent  or  even  of  many  adherents 
to  its  doctrine  who  have  disagreed  with  its  poli- 
cies. Heresy,  baffled  by  the  spiritual  potency  of 
the  Church,  may  return  refreshed  to  the  charge, 
when  it  confines  its  attacks  to  what  has  happened, 
in  general,  when  priests  have  undertaken  to  man- 
age secular  matters  uncontrolled.  One  need 
not  go  to  heretics  for  comments  on  this  state  of 
affairs.  Not  long  ago,  a  good  French  Catholic 
professed  in  print  that  anyone  must  admit  the 
Church  supreme  in  matters  concerning  the  im- 
mortal soul.  At  the  same  time,  he  pointed  out, 
the  principles  which  should  direct  the  infinite 
course  of  an  immortal  organism  should  seem, 
in  their  very  nature,  hardly  identical  with  those 
which  should  govern  the  brief  course  of  anything 
mortal.     This  reasoning,  he  opined,  went  far  to 


264       THE  FRANCE   OP  TODAY 

explain  why  churchmen,  as  a  class,  are  by  no 
means  satisfactory  politicians  or  trustees. 

At  the  same  time  there  can  be  no  doubt  that 
the  impulse  of  a  spiritually  supreme  authority  to 
assert  its  supremacy  in  other  matters  than  those 
of  doctrine  or  morals  is  humanly  irresistible.  It 
is  subject  to  the  same  infirmity  as  an  individual, 
growing  aware  of  great  power  in  some  special 
faculty,  and  not  sure  of  just  where  his  power 
ends,  —  of  where  his  inspiration  ceases,  we  may 
say,  and  where  his  human  weakness  begins.  To 
himself  each  of  us,  however  complex,  is  a  single 
being.  If  he  can  think  well  and  speak  well,  for 
example,  he  feels  as  if  he  were  consequently  able 
to  act  wisely  too.  So  he  would  be,  except  for  the 
diabolical  contradictoriness  of  the  world.  And 
we  are  all  of  us  human  enough  to  wonder  why 
impeccable  theoretical  economists  should  not  be 
put  to  the  task  of  legislating  for  railways  or  of  di- 
recting them  —  until,  again  and  again,  railways 
come  to  grief  under  their  honestly  blundering 
management. 

To  minds  not  deeply  fond  of  system  —  to  what 
we  carelessly  call  practical  common  sense  — 
such  misfortune  seems  natural.  To  minds  of 
more  alert  intelligence,  and  therefore  desirous 
of  reducing  everything  to  order,  it  seems  rather 
paradoxical;    and  paradox  is  unwelcome  to  in- 


THE   QUESTION   OF  RELIGION     265 

telHgence.  Though  it  cannot  always  be  avoided, 
this  temper  holds,  the  less  of  it  the  better. 
Now  the  French,  as  we  have  reminded  ourselves 
again  and  again,  are  extremely  disposed  to  in- 
dulge themselves  in  the  delights  and  the  dangers 
of  systematic  reasoning.  The  intelligence  of  that 
distinction  made  by  a  French  Catholic  between 
the  principles  which  should  direct  immortal  or- 
ganisms and  those  which  should  control  organ- 
isms doomed  to  death  is  deeply  French.  The 
paradox  of  his  reasoning  is  less  so,  unless  you 
take  it  as  a  mere  epigram.  It  is  less  so  be- 
cause it  instantly  sets  up  two  divergent  sys- 
tems to  control  a  situation  where,  on  general 
principles,  you  might  expect  one  to  serve  the 
purpose.  The  claim  of  the  spiritually  supreme 
Church  to  manage  secular  matters  —  perhaps  we 
might  rather  say  its  impulse  to  meddle  with  them 
—  is  certainly  defensible  on  general  principles. 
A  good  man  ought  to  be  more  trustworthy  than 
a  bad;  more  still,  an  inspired  hierarchy  ought 
to  manage  politics  or  education  better  than 
every-day  men  or  women  should  pretend  to. 
Whether  they  do  so  or  not  is  hardly  the  ques- 
tion; we  stray  for  the  moment  into  regions 
of  abstraction,  where  systems  can  flash  them- 
selves out  of  the  nebulous  confusion  of  unrea- 
soning perception.     These  regions  are  particu- 


266       THE   FRANCE   OF   TODAY 

larly  congenial  to  the  French.  For  one  French- 
man, clerical  or  revolutionary,  who  should  will- 
ingly recognize  a  distinction  between  the  spiritual 
and  the  temporal  activity  of  the  Church,  you 
shall  find  a  hundred  who  incline  to  agree  that  the 
pretensions  of  the  Church  towards  earthly  om- 
nipotence are  reasonable.  Your  good  Catholic 
is  accordingly  disposed  to  admit  them,  at  least  in 
principle;  your  Revolutionist,  on  the  other  hand, 
denying  the  right  of  the  Church  to  intermeddle 
with  secular  aflFairs,  is  disposed  not  to  split 
hairs,  but  to  denounce  the  Church  as  infamous 
throughout.  Among  the  French  the  unity  of 
the  authoritative  Church  appeals  almost  equally 
to  its  disciples  and  to  its  enemies. 

To  each  other  these  groups  appear  much  as 
they  appeared  throughout  the  elder  period,  when 
wars  of  religion  worried  Europe  everywhere. 
As  was  the  case  then,  any  actual  dispute  grows 
so  complicated  with  other  matters  and  with  other 
passions  than  religious,  that  at  any  given  moment 
it  may  seem  only  another  new  broil  of  ignoble 
human  effort.  At  the  heart  of  every  truly  re- 
ligious conflict,  the  while,  you  may  always  find 
an  earnestness  of  conviction  which  shall  ennoble 
its  memory.  For  on  each  side  you  shall  always 
find  leaders  —  and  followers  too  —  unhesitatingly 
devoted  to  their  ideals  of  truth. 


THE  QUESTION   OF  RELIGION    267 

In  the  case  of  the  religious  dissensions  which 
have  rent  France  during  the  past  century  or  so, 
this  is  particularly  evident  on  both  sides:  both 
have  been  heroically  sincere  in  their  loyalty  to 
their  philosophies.  And  neglecting  for  the  mo- 
ment all  ecclesiastical  pretension,  we  may  rec- 
ognize a  fundamental  difference  between  the 
philosophy  of  the  Church  and  that  of  the  Revo- 
lution. The  two  schools  start  from  precisely 
opposite  assumptions  concerning  human  nature. 

Both  admit  that  if  you  scrutinize  man,  as  he 
reveals  himself  on  earth,  you  will  find  him  every- 
where to  embody  intermingled  good  and  evil. 
From  this  point  the  reasoning  of  historical 
Christianity  has  steadily  maintained  that  the 
evil  forces  of  human  nature  are  obviously  the 
dominant  ones.  Men  are  naturally  wicked. 
Wherever  you  look,  in  society  or  in  history,  you 
shall  find  them  so.  No  scheme  of  earthly  ho- 
liness was  ever  devised  which  could  down  the 
Devil.  If  anywhere  you  fancy  yourself  worthy 
of  anything  but  spiritual  contempt,  search  your 
heart,  and  tell  yourself  the  truth  of  what  you 
find  there.  We  are  all  sinners,  unless  some 
power  beyond  ourselves  intervenes  to  purify 
us.  Like  naughty  children  or  strayed  sheep^ 
we  can  be  guided  toward  good  only  by  some 
higher  power.     To  control  evil,  there  is  need  of 


268       THE  FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

authority.  Throughout  history  this  conception 
of  human  nature  and  its  deserts  has  commended 
itself  to  myriads  of  honest  and  devout  human 
beings. 

The  view  of  human  nature  asserted  by  the 
philosophy  which  found  political  expression  in 
the  French  Revolution,  though  equally  dogmatic, 
is  less  sinister.  Why  assume  that  the  worse  ele- 
ment in  human  nature  is  fatally  dominant  ?  It  is 
always  intermingled  with  good.  There  was  never 
a  state  of  society  so  corrupt  that  l)y  seeking  you 
should  not  find  within  it  traces  of  virtue;  there 
was  never  a  man  so  abandoned  that  if  he  would 
search  his  heart  he  should  not  discover  there 
something  to  help  and  even  to  impel  him  to- 
ward improvement.  Amid  the  distorting  systems 
which  have  confused  and  distracted  the  course 
of  human  history,  no  doubt,  human  nature  has 
seemed  evil  to  eyes  not  keen  enough  to  search 
its  secrets  deep.  That  amid  all  this  tragedy  the 
impulse  toward  good  has  persisted  unquenched 
proves  that  the  fire  glowing  within  us  is  truly 
divine.  All  we  need  for  excellence,  or  at  least 
for  an  aspiration  which  shall  forever  bring  us 
nearer  and  nearer  to  excellence,  is  to  perceive 
that  the  source  of  evil  lies  not  in  human  nature, 
but  in  impediments  to  the  free  course  of  man- 
kind.    Seek  the  truth,  and  the  truth  shall  make 


THE   QUESTION   OF   RELIGION    269 

you  free.  Once  free,  you  shall  never  cease  to 
grow  better  and  more  beneficent.  Diabolically 
heretical  though  any  such  philosophy  must  sound 
to  orthodox  ecclesiastical  Christians,  there  can 
be  no  question  that  it  has  seemed  self-evident  to 
myriads  of  human  beings  as  honest  and  as  de- 
vout as  they  themselves. 

This  deep  divergence  of  philosophy  has  been 
exceptionally  marked  among  the  French,  for  the 
very  reason  that  they  are  at  once  deeply  re- 
ligious and  impulsively  disposed  to  reduce  to 
philosophic  system  whatever  comes  within  the 
range  of  their  knowledge.  Starting  from  what  he 
deems  absolute  truth  concerning  human  nature, 
one  kind  of  Frenchman,  accepting  the  doctrine  of 
the  Church,  proceeds  to  construct  a  system  of 
which  thfe  merely  logical  conclusion,  unattain- 
able in  perfection,  would  be  the  obedience  of 
all  mankind  to  ecclesiastical  authority  —  con- 
tented acceptance  of  beneficent  tyranny,  not 
needfully  unprogressive,  but  always  reverently 
prudent.  Starting  from  the  opposite  conception 
of  absolute  truth  concerning  human  nature,  an- 
other kind  of  Frenchman,  rejecting  orthodox 
doctrine,  proceeds  with  equal  logic  to  construct 
an  equally  unattainable  system,  of  which  the  end 
should  be  a  heavenly  sort  of  anarchy  —  freedom 
from  all  control,  made  feasible  by  the  strengthen- 


270       THE  FRANCE   OF   TODAY 

ing  harmonies  of  unimpeded  individual  aspira- 
tion towards  ever  higher  excellence.  Each  of 
these  systems  rests  on  a  dogmatic  denial  that 
there  is  any  truth  in  the  fundamental  assumption 
of  the  other.  Any  toleration,  any  shade  of  com- 
promise, would  seem  to  both  a  crime  of  the  spirit. 
In  temper  they  are  passionately  at  one ;  —  whence 
their  conscientious  discord. 

At  the  time  of  the  Revolution  this  conflict  was 
more  simply  evident  than  at  any  other  epoch. 
For  centuries  the  power  of  the  Church  in  France 
had  been  great ;  and  incidentally  this  had  brought 
to  the  Church  great  wealth,  particularly  in  lands. 
It  was  not  only  that  church  buildings  and  re- 
ligious houses  everywhere  existed  in  what  seemed 
needless  profusion,  keeping  apart  from  lay  use 
innumerable  sites  which  laymen  coveted.  A 
considerable  portion  of  the  soil  was  in  clerical 
hands.  The  clergy,  as  well,  enjoyed  many  feu- 
dal rights.  Quite  apart  from  their  religious 
character,  they  were  among  the  most  obnoxious 
of  the  privileged  classes  in  the  eyes  of  social  re- 
formers who  ardently  believed  that  men  could 
improve  only  under  conditions  of  liberty.  Revo- 
lutionary sentiment  made  no  very  clear  distinc- 
tion between  the  spiritual  character  of  the  clergy 
and  the  civil.  Obviously,  if  revolutionary  prin- 
ciple were  to  prevail,  the  temporal  privileges  of 


THE   QUESTION   OF   RELIGION    271 

the  Church  must  be  suppressed.  The  simplest 
way  to  do  this  was  to  suppress  the  Church  alto- 
gether, conJBiscating  its  property  for  the  benefit  of 
the  nation  and  mankind.  Without  entering  into 
any  details  of  this  confused  history,  we  may  agree, 
I  think,  that  something  like  such  suppression  and 
confiscation  occurred.  In  tradition,  it  seems 
a  relentless  persecution.  Plain  traces  of  it  re- 
main in  France  to  this  day.  If  one  would  know 
what  lands  used  to  be  in  clerical  possession  one 
must  search  records ;  but  desecrated  churches  and 
ecclesiastical  buildings  you  may  still  find  every- 
where —  some  abandoned  or  falling  into  ruin, 
others  in  crumbling  use  for  secular  purpose.  I 
remember  the  singular  picturesqueness  of  an  old 
city  church  in  Normandy,  full  years  ago  of  stray 
storage,  and  now,  I  believe,  destroyed.  I  re- 
member a  busy  town  market  near  Paris,  held  in 
a  whitewashed  nave  —  poultry  cackling  under  the 
Gothic  arches,  the  haggling  of  peasants  echoing 
from  the  vaulted  roofs  designed  to  reverberate 
with  the  mystic  words  of  the  Mass.  I  remem- 
ber the  empty  dustiness  of  a  great  Provencal 
monastery,  with  an  afternoon  sun  streaming 
through  the  vacant  windows  of  a  Romanesque 
clerestory,  and  lighting  the  depths  of  broken 
tombs,  ransacked  by  some  revolutionary  mob 
in  that  fierce  old  time  when  they  would  have 


272       THE   FRANCE   OF   TODAY 

no  more   of  the   religion  of  Christ,  and  were 
all  aglow  for  the  worship  of  Reason. 

Perhaps  the  most  impressive  monument  of 
this  devastation,  the  while,  is  probably  the  most 
familiar.  During  the  eighteenth  century,  when 
French  architecture  was  least  religious  in  its  sen- 
timent, they  set  to  building  a  fine  new  church 
for  Saint  Genevieve,  the  patron  of  Paris.  Every 
line  of  it,  every  detail,  belongs  to  the  period  of 
its  erection.  No  structure,  you  would  say,  could 
less  suffer  from  technical  desecration;  for  noth- 
ing in  it,  from  dome  to  foundation  stone,  would 
stir  you  elsewhere  to  meditation  on  the  Christian 
ages.  What  is  more,  they  did  not  rudely  dese- 
crate it.  Its  general  aspect  appealed  to  revolu- 
tionary taste;  and  besides  it  stood  for  what  had 
been  the  most  popular  shrine  of  Paris.  Why 
not  keep  it  so  still  ?  One  need  only  dedicate  it 
to  truer  gods;  and  its  beauty  might  persist  for 
centuries,  to  show  enfranchised  humanity  what 
reasonable  buildings  ought  to  look  like.  So 
presently,  I  believe  after  various  debate,  they 
devoted  it  ^^  Aux  Grands  Hommes  de  la  Patrie/' 
—  To  the  Great  Men  of  our  Country,  —  and  they 
called  it  the  Pantheon,  inasmuch  as  great  men 
were  the  highest  embodiments  of  their  divinity. 
And  sundry  men  whom  we  may  freely  acknowl- 
edge to  be  great  were  buried  in  the  vaults  of  it; 


THE   QUESTION   OF   RELIGION    273 

and,  of  late  years,  the  walls  of  the  Pantheon  have 
been  covered  with  paintings  as  good  as  the  most 
skilful  artists  in  the  world  can  make  them.  And 
whoever  travels  to  Paris  goes  thither  to  look  at 
the  paintings  and  to  ponder  on  the  greatness  of 
France. 

If  they  had  built  the  Pantheon  for  the  purpose 
to  which  it  is  now  devoted,  they  would  hardly 
have  made  it  much  other  than  it  is.  What  is 
more,  when  you  stand  in  its  colossal  nave,  you 
cannot  deny  that  it  has  been  honestly  devoted  to 
its  purpose.  Yet  of  all  such  edifices  anywhere 
it  stirs  you  least  towards  such  emotion  as  they 
expect  you  to  experience.  You  recall  the  dim 
sanctity  of  Westminster  Abbey,  or  the  spacious 
dignity  of  Santa  Croce  where  the  great  men  of 
other  nations  lie.  You  recall  the  equally  pa- 
gan splendors  of  Saint  Peter's  at  Rome,  or  of 
Saint  Paul's  with  its  begrimed  dome  surmount- 
ing the  city  of  London.  In  each  and  all  of  these 
you  have  found  something  no  longer  here.  Each 
in  its  own  way  has  moved  you  as  you  might  have 
been  moved  more  tenderly  by  the  human  pathos 
of  some  country  church  in  England,  lying  quiet 
behind  its  dark  yew,  where  you  may  find  a  gaunt 
cross-legged  crusader  on  his  brass,  and  painted 
Elizabethan  eflSgies  with  their  marble  ruffs,  and 
pompous  epitaphs  from  the  time  of  King  George 

18 


274       THE   FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

the  Second,  almost  resounding  from  the  dusty  tab- 
lets above  the  pews.  Each  and  all  of  these  could 
open  for  you  immeasurable  vistas  of  the  past, 
until  you  became  marvellingly  aware  of  the  un- 
fathomable identity,  the  unfailing  brotherhood,  of 
humanity.  Strangely  different  in  outward  sem- 
blance, all  were  still  animated  by  enduring  life. 
Here  in  the  Pantheon  of  Paris  you  seek  it  in  vain. 
They  have  enriched  it  with  fine  art  more  intel- 
ligent than  you  shall  find,  perhaps,  in  all  the 
rest  together.  But  in  some  indefinable  way  it  is 
strangely,  appallingly  lifeless,  like  the  mummied 
sovereigns  of  old  Egypt  in  their  reopened  coffins. 
You  are  in  a  temple  from  whence  the  spirit  has 
fled.     You  are  in  the  heart  of  emptiness. 

Though  such  impressions  may  seem  merely 
individual,  this  one  recurs,  not  only  when  you 
yourself  revisit  this  austere  vacancy,  but  again 
and  again  when  you  ask  your  friends  what  they 
discover  there.  It  implies  at  once  the  eflFort  of 
the  revolutionary  French  to  uproot  the  religion 
of  a  thousand  years  and  the  hopeless  futility  of 
their  instant  religious  aspiration.  The  change 
which  the  Reformation  worked  in  the  surviving 
churches  of  England  or  of  Holland  was  far  less 
radical  than  the  change  which  the  Revolution 
attempted  in  those  of  France;  in  the  steady 
light    of    history    it    looks    hardly   more    than 


THE   QUESTION   OF   RELIGION    275 

schismatic.  Yet  centuries  had  to  pass  before 
you  could  feel  the  tradition  of  Protestantism 
securely  enshrined  in  the  holy  places  of  our  elder 
ancestral  faith.  You  may  persecute  religion  as 
relentlessly  as  you  will.  Unless,  without  your 
persecution,  it  be  moribund,  you  cannot  suppress 
the  spirit  of  truth  burning  at  the  heart  of  it.  You 
may  drive  it  from  its  sanctuaries ;  but  if  it  be  not 
dying  of  itself,  you  can  never  make  them  seem 
complete  without  it. 

Among  unending  complications,  I  have  grown 
to  feel,  some  recognition  of  this  truth  was  what 
brought  about  the  re- establishment  of  the  Church 
in  France.  Christianity  could  not  be  suppressed 
by  any  edict  or  legislation,  any  more  than  it  could 
be  imposed.  Neither  could  any  other  form  of 
vitally  formulated  religion.  Religious  bodies  de- 
manded such  freedom  as  the  philosophy  of  the 
Revolution  pretended  to  accord  to  all  created 
beings.  Under  compulsion,  they  surrendered 
most  of  their  old  earthly  privileges;  but  they 
insisted  on  their  human  rights;  and  by  and  by 
they  had  them. 

The  religious  constitution  of  France  under 
the  system  inaugurated  by  Napoleon,  which  per- 
sisted until  a  little  while  ago,  seems  in  its  broader 
lines  a  pretty  simple  compromise.  Three  phases 
of  religion  were  oflScially  recognized  as  consider- 


276       THE   FRANCE   OF   TODAY 

able  enough  to  demand  support  —  the  Catholic 
Church,  Protestant   Christianity,  and   Judaism. 
So  far  as  any  of  the  three  had  possessed  property 
before  the  Revolution,  this  had  been  confiscated 
by  the  revolutionary  authorities.     The  govern- 
ment was   in  full   possession   not   only  of   the 
churches  and  the  lands,  but  of  the  revenues  of 
the  religious  bodies  which  had  flourished  before 
the  Revolution.     For  many  reasons  it  was  im- 
practicable, as  well  as  impolitic,  to  restore  these; 
but  it  was  both  practicable  and  politic  to  make 
some  manner  of  compensation  for  them,  or  at 
least  for  the  embarrassments  involved  in  the  loss 
of  them.     The  final  arrangement  was  virtually 
as  follows:  The  government  assumed  the  charge 
of  paying  the  salaries  of  the  clergy,  Protestant, 
Jewish,  and  Catholic  alike.     It  restored  to  re- 
ligious bodies  the  right  of  acquiring  and  manag- 
ing private  property.      It  granted  to  them  the 
free  use  of  such  church  buildings  as  they  needed 
for  their  ceremonies.     But,  at  least  in  the  case  of 
bishops,  it  reserved  for  itself  a  power  of  nomina- 
tion analogous  to  that  enjoyed  in  England  by 
owners  of  church  livings.     In  its  main  outlines 
the  arrangement  was  simple  and  systematic;  it 
involved,  however,  the  paradox  that  the  highest 
oflBces  of  the  spiritually  supreme  Catholic  Church 
could  be  attained  in  France  only  through  the 


THE   QUESTION   OF   RELIGION    277 

mediation  of  a  government  which  a  turn  of  poli- 
tics might  place  at  any  moment  —  as  indeed  it 
frequently  did  —  in  the  hands  of  free-thinkers. 

Under  this  system  religion  in  France  persisted 
for  rather  more  than  a  hundred  years.  As  we 
have  seen,  the  Protestants  and  the  Jews  there 
were  numerically  inconsiderable.  For  our  pur- 
poses, accordingly,  these  bodies  may  be  neg- 
lected. The  important  consideration  is  what 
happened  to  the  Catholic  Church  in  its  new  rela- 
tion with  the  state.  On  the  whole,  it  prospered. 
As  has  been  the  case  all  over  the  world  during 
the  nineteenth  century,  to  be  sure,  the  decline  of 
ecclesiastical  privilege  made  a  clerical  career  less 
attractive  than  of  old  to  what  had  formerly  been 
the  privileged  classes.  The  great  development  of 
science,  meanwhile,  which  promised  for  a  while  to 
unriddle  the  universe,  distracted  from  a  clerical 
career  a  considerable  amount  of  such  intelligence 
as  would  earlier  have  found  it  congenial.  But  this 
was  not  peculiar  to  France.  As  a  good  Catholic 
gentleman,  lately  returned  from  Rome,  observed 
to  me  with  a  sigh,  "Les  cardijiaux  grands- 
seigneurs  sont  tons  morts*';  and  the  excellent 
man  who  now  sits  in  the  chair  of  Saint  Peter 
was  born  a  peasant  —  a  combination  of  circum- 
stances unprecedented,  I  believe,  since  before  the 
Reformation.     The  fact  that  the  French  clergy 


278       THE   FRANCE   OF   TODAY  ^ 

of  the  nineteenth  century  have  generally  been 
simple  people,  moreover,  involves  the  fact  that 
they  have  generally  been  men  of  simple  charac- 
ter, honestly  devoted  to  their  spiritual  duties; 
and  as  they  have  remained  French,  they  have 
generally  been  men  of  higher  intelligence  than 
their  own  compatriots  always  quite  perceive. 

This  in  itself  would  have  won  them,  among 
Catholics,  a  higher  degree  of  respect  than  was 
always  commanded,  in  more  prosperous  times, 
by  their  more  worldly  predecessors.  Together 
with  this  they  enjoyed  a  kind  of  worldly  advan- 
tage which  no  legislative  opposition  could  much 
affect.  Everywhere  throughout  all  France,  their 
position  was  strengthened  by  the  subtle  force  of 
fashion.  In  America,  even  to  the  present  time, 
the  Catholic  Church  usually  presents  itself  as, 
on  the  whole,  foreign;  and,  except  for  a  few 
notable  instances  in  the  fashionable  life  of  our 
larger  cities,  it  seems  to  old-fashioned  Americans 
the  religion  of  the  masses  as  distinguished  from 
the  classes.  Almost  everywhere  in  America,  the 
while,  some  particular  form  of  Protestantism  is 
sanctioned  by  local  fashion;  when  self-made  men 
do  well  in  the  world,  nothing  is  more  frequent 
than  to  find  their  children,  as  a  matter  of  taste, 
associating  themselves  with  more  distinguished 
religious  bodies   than   taught  them   their  cate- 


THE   QUESTION   OF  RELIGION     279 

chisms.  The  very  fact  that  this  tendency  is  open 
to  spiritual  criticism  defines  the  strength  of  it. 
Even  though  you  may  not  be  much  attached 
to  the  tenets  of  your  minister,  you  do  not  quite 
like,  as  a  matter  of  decency,  to  be  married  or 
buried  without  his  intervention;  and  you  gener- 
ally prefer  the  intervention  of  the  most  dignified 
divine  accessible.  What  is  thus  familiar  among 
ourselves,  mostly  in  connection  with  various  sects 
of  Protestantism,  has  been  the  case  with  the 
Catholic  Church  in  France.  Not  to  conform  to 
it  has  put  a  Frenchman  in  much  the  position 
of  Dissenters  in  England.  Their  conscientious 
disregard  of  everything  but  conviction  is  highly 
respectable;  but  as  a  matter  of  fashion  it  is  not 
quite  the  thing. 

In  France,  meanwhile,  the  Catholic  Church 
is  truly  catholic,  in  the  sense  that  it  embraces  all 
classes  of  society.  What  I  have  in  mind  was 
vividly  brought  to  my  notice  during  my  visit  to 
one  of  the  provincial  universities.  The  city 
where  this  is  situated,  I  had  been  given  to  under- 
stand, is  rather  disposed  to  freedom  of  thought 
in  matters  religious.  This  was  not  apparent  to 
the  eye;  you  would  have  supposed  it  a  citadel 
of  orthodoxy.  During  the  ten  days  I  passed 
there  a  great  number  of  children  were  taking 
their  first  communion.     Wherever  you  went  in 


280       THE   FRANCE   OF   TODAY 

the  streets  you  were  sure  to  meet  little  girls,  gen 
tie  and  simple,  dressed  in  white  and  decorated 
with  what  looked  like  bridal  veils,  either  on  their 
way  to  or  from  church,  or  later  in  the  process  of 
presenting  themselves,  in  their  pretty  finery,  to 
the  principal  friends  of  their  families.  Boys,  in 
similar  circumstances,  wore  their  best  clothes, 
and  white  hat-ribbons,  and  big  white  rosettes  on 
the  breasts  of  their  jackets.  Not  to  have  taken 
part  in  these  ceremonies  would  evidently  have 
made  a  child  unwelcomely  conspicuous  —  as  queer 
costume  might  at  an  American  school,  or  insist- 
ence on  public  use  of  Quaker  dialect.  So  I  was 
not  surprised  to  find  that,  in  a  great  many  cases, 
the  parents  of  these  devout  little  people  were  by 
no  means  clerical  in  sympathy.  A  good  Catho- 
lic colleague  at  this  university  gave  me  a  hu- 
morous account  of  a  free- thinking  friend  of  ours, 
lately  affected  to  sentimental  effusion  of  parental 
tears  by  the  pretty  spectacle  of  his  eldest  daughter 
in  her  communion- veil;  and  he  spoke  with  un- 
feigned admiration  of  the  only  professor  in  the 
university  who,  being  himself  a  free-thinker,  had 
resolutely  refused  to  have  his  children  baptized. 

With  this  conscientious  radical  as  well,  I  had 
a  good  deal  of  talk.  There  was  never  a  more 
honest  man,  nor,  in  the  general  sense  of  the  word, 
a  more  deeply  religious.     He  recoiled,  with  spirit- 


THE   QUESTION   OF  RELIGION    281 

ual  candor,  from  the  thought  of  pretending  by 
any  formal  act  to  acknowledge  the  authority  of 
a  religion  which  he  believed  false.  Such  an 
act  seemed  to  him  too  solemn  to  be  influenced, 
like  dress  or  manners,  by  any  accident  of  fashion. 
Sincerely  believing  that  Catholicism  was  false, 
he  made  no  secret  of  his  hostility  to  it.  This 
he  found  warranted  not  only  by  such  facts  as  we 
have  already  touched  on,  threatening  enough  in 
themselves.  He  was  deeply  alarmed  by  two 
other  phases  of  its  growth.  One  was  the  pro- 
gress it  had  made  among  the  bourgeoisie.  In 
former  times,  he  believed,  the  Church  had  taken 
firm  hold  on  the  masses,  and  had  evidently 
been  the  traditional  supporter  of  the  privileged 
classes.  The  great  middle  class  meanwhile  had 
been  the  stronghold  of  robust  free  thought. 
Now,  as  a  matter  of  fashion,  the  bourgeoisie  was 
becoming  orthodox.  It  was  sending  its  children 
to  be  educated  in  convents  or  by  Jesuits.  If  this 
went  on,  he  cried,  what  was  to  become  of  the 
Revolution?  A  reactionary  bourgeoisie,  which, 
alas!  appeared  to  be  declaring  itself,  would 
mean  national  reversion  to  the  darkness  of  the 
mediaeval  past. 

Again,  what  impressed  him  still  more,  was  the 
growing  wealth  of  the  Church.  The  Revolution 
had  taken  half  France,  you  might  say,  out  of 


282       THE  FRANCE   OF   TODAY 

mortmain.     The  gifts  of  the  faithful  were  rapidly 

getting  it  back  there.     Your  priests  might  be 

good  men,  according  to  their  lights;  —  he  would 

be  the  last  to  deny  them  the  justice  of  this  ac- 

,  knowledgment.     But  everybody  knew  that  these 

j  very  lights  led  them  —  as  they  had  led  them 

I  through  the  ages  —  to  the  practice  of  suggesting 

to  penitents  and  to  the  dying  that  gifts  to  the 

i  Church  had  always  been  regarded  as  a  measure 

I  of  prudence.     And,  good  as  some  priests  might 

i  be,  everybody  knew  that  plenty  of  them  were 

by  no  means   respectable;     at   best   they  were 

untrustworthy,  intriguing.     They  wormed  their 

way  everywhere;   unopposed,  they  would  riddle 

the  body  of  society,  or  at  least  of  the  Republic. 

The  melancholy  necessity  was  evident.     As  a 

matter  of  the  most  elementary  care  for  national 

safety,  they  must  be  pursued  like  what  they  were, 

spiritual  vermin. 

This  summary,  I  believe,  in  no  wise  overstates 
the  good  man's  opinion.  What  is  more,  not  a 
few  enlightened  Catholics  recognized  in  more 
measured  terms  that  his  opinions  were  not  quite 
groundless.  I  have  already  mentioned  the  or- 
thodox Catholic  professor  who  found  food  for 
reflection  in  the  religious  history  of  Spain.  I 
have  mentioned  as  well  how  a  sincere  Catholic 
writer  maintained  that  the  priests  whose  profes- 


THE   QUESTION   OF   RELIGION    283 

sional  concerns  are  with  another  world  than  ours, 
may  best  leave  the  affairs  of  this  world  to  mortal 
experts.  These  good  Catholics,  the  while,  and 
thousands  like  them,  would  tell  you  most  assur- 
edly, that,  whatever  indiscretions  the  Church  may 
have  been  tempted  to  commit,  the  opponents  of 
the  Church  could  match  them  at  every  turn. 

Take,  for  example,  the  intrigues  attributed 
to  the  Jesuits;  everybody  has  heard  enough  of 
them  to  know  what  free-thinkers  suppose  Jesuits 
to  be.  Assume,  if  you  like,  without  troubling 
yourself  to  examine  details,  that  the  charges 
against  this  eminent  religious  order  rest  on  some 
basis  of  truth.  The  worst  of  them  is  not  a  bit 
worse  than  what  French  free-thinkers  themselves 
were  proved  to  have  done,  a  little  while  ago. 
At  the  time  the  government  was  strongly  anti- 
clerical, A  considerable  number  of  oflScers  in 
the  army  were  suspected  of  clerical  sympathies. 
The  government  was  consequently  disposed  to 
look  at  them  with  suspicion,  and  even  privately 
to  doubt  their  loyalty.  The  preservation  of  the 
Republic  might  at  any  moment  require  that  the 
army  should  be  in  the  hands  of  trustworthy  men. 
It  was  accordingly  of  the  highest  importance  to 
discover  who  the  untrustworthy  might  be.  One 
means  taken  for  so  doing  was  to  hunt  up  any 
indication  that  a  military  man  was  on  person- 


284       THE  FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

ally  friendly  terms  with  orthodox  Catholics.  As 
agents  in  this  investigation,  the  authorities  turned 
to  a  Masonic  fraternity.  The  French  Freemasons, 
it  is  believed,  are  strongly  anti- Catholic;  and  they 
are  said  to  concern  themselves  with  politics  to  a 
degree  which  the  Freemasons  of  other  countries 
deplore.  At  all  events,  certain  Masonic  brethren 
sent  secret  reports  to  Paris  —  to  the  effect  that 
General  A  had  gone  to  Mass,  that  Major  B 
had  been  present  when  his  niece  took  her  first 
communion,  that  Captain  C  had  spoken  with 
personal  respect  of  His  Holiness  the  Pope,  that 
Lieutenant  D  had  taken  a  walk  with  a  village 
priest.  This  information  was  presumably  in- 
tended for  the  dossiers  of  the  military  men  in 
question,  whose  billets  would  probably  keep 
them  in  consequence  a  good  way  from  Paris,  un- 
less the  government  turned  clerical.  By  some 
accident  they  fell  into  the  hands  of  clerical 
sympathizers  and  thus  got  into  the  newspapers. 
And  I  am  bound  to  say  that  my  free- thinking 
friend  could  find  no  better  defence  for  them 
than  that  they  proved  the  danger  of  the  Church 
by  demonstrating  how  the  best  opponents  of 
Catholicism  could  hardly  escape  the  contagion 
of  clerical  methods.  For  his  own  part,  he  con- 
demned the  intrigue,  on  general  principles,  with 
the  best  Catholic  of  them  all. 


THE   QUESTION   OF  RELIGION    285 

The  precise  religious  question  then  in  debate 
was  whether  the  Concordat  —  the  instrument 
of  compromise  by  which  the  ecclesiastical  con- 
fusion of  the  Revolution  had  been  adjusted  with 
Rome  —  should  be  brought  to  an  end.  As 
everyone  knows,  this  has  since  been  done;  and 
the  subsequent  state  of  religious  feeling  and  pol- 
itics in  France  has  been  disturbed.  Into  any 
details  of  the  actual  situation  I  do  not  feel  com- 
petent to  go.  One  thing,  however,  seems  sure: 
the  conduct  of  the  free-thinkers  now  in  power 
has  amounted  to  what,  in  historical  tradition, 
has  been  called  persecution.  It  has  not  pro- 
ceeded, of  course,  to  the  superannuated  methods 
of  former  times ;  it  has  not  killed  anybody.  But 
it  has  virtually  confiscated  a  great  deal  of  prop- 
erty; it  has  done  what  it  could  to  prevent  the 
accumulation  of  more;  and,  although  demand- 
ing for  itself  complete  freedom  of  conscience,  it 
has  practically  legislated  against  freedom  of  con- 
science on  the  part  of  the  orthodox.  No  clerical 
intolerance  was  ever  more  sincere  or  more  unre- 
lenting than  the  anti- clerical  intolerance  of  these 
very  times. 

This  was  deeply  impressed  on  me  by  a  long 
and  intimate  talk  with  a  liberal  French  Protestant 
—  in  New  England  he  would  have  been  a  sincere 
Unitarian,  with  all  the  individual  purity  of  char- 


286       THE   FRANCE   OF   TODAY 

acter  and  generosity  of  human  sympathy  which 
that  term  implies.  He  condemned,  as  indig- 
nantly as  any  Catholic,  the  intriguing  efforts  of 
the  Freemasons  to  thwart  the  careers  of  Catholic 
soldiers.  And  he  told  a  vivid  story  of  what  he 
himself  felt  to  be  the  blind  prejudice  of  the 
older  Protestants  in  France.  For  his  own  part, 
he  saw  no  reason  why  one  should  not  take  inno- 
cent pleasure  or  seek  spiritual  edification  any- 
where. So  he  had  often  attended  Catholic 
ceremonies,  deeply  sensitive  to  their  emotional 
power  and  beauty.  On  one  occasion,  when  ex- 
ceptional music  was  promised,  he  had  persuaded 
a  good  old  Protestant  lady  to  go  with  him.  He 
had  expected  her  to  be  delighted  with  the  spec- 
tacle. Instead,  it  filled  her  with  horror.  The 
incense  affected  her  like  the  smoke  of  Hell  itself. 
The  consecration  of  the  Host  seemed  to  her  the 
incarnation  of  the  Devil.  She  felt  as  a  Catholic 
might  feel  in  the  presence  of  some  fabled  Messe 
Noire.  She  could  hardly  totter  out  into  the  air 
of  heaven  from  this  place  which  seemed  to  her 
accursed. 

Her  state  of  mind  impressed  my  friend  just  as 
it  would  impress  any  of  us  —  as  dramatic,  as 
pathetic,  and  yet  as  tinged  with  a  touch  of  humor, 
to  lighten  the  drama  and  the  pathos.  It  was 
as  unreasoningly  intolerant  as  the  mood  of  any 


THE   QUESTION   OF   RELIGION    287 

good  Catholic  might  have  been  who  should  have 
discerned  in  the  good  woman's  experience  visible 
evidence  of  how  the  Devil  must  writhe  in  the 
presence  of  immortal  Truth.  For  his  own  part, 
my  Protestant  friend  seemed  to  feel  more  than 
content  that  Catholic  ceremonies  should  go  on 
as  long  as  anyone  cared  for  them.  Beyond  cavil, 
they  were  beautiful  pageants,  incredibly  adapted 
by  the  experiments  of  a  thousand  years  to  the 
aesthetic  sensibilities  of  human  beings.  They 
were  even  of  spiritual  eflScacy,  ^now  and  again, 
like  some  absorbing  music.  It  was  wiser  to 
thank  God  for  them  than  to  find  fault.  If  Ca- 
tholicism stopped  there,  he  for  one  would  be  glad 
to  have  it  persist  forever.  But  —  his  eye  began 
to  flash  —  there  was  a  truly  devilish  side  to  these 
Catholics.  No  one  could  conceive  what  delib- 
erate mischief  they  would  wreak,  if  you  let  them 
have  their  way. 

Just  what  did  he  mean?  I  asked.  He  an- 
swered by  a  supposed  example,  whether  real  or 
imaginary  I  do  not  know.  Imagine  a  free- 
thinker whose  wife  is  a  Catholic.  The  husband 
has  of  course  consented  that  his  children  shall 
have  orthodox  religious  education.  His  eldest 
daughter  is  a  dear  child,  very  fond  of  him. 
The  time  comes  for  her  to  prepare  for  her  first 
communion.     Instead  of  approaching  it,  as  both 


288       THE   FRANCE   OF   TODAY 

father  and  mother  had  expected,  with  exalted 
enthusiasm,  she  is  observed  to  look  ill.  They 
grow  anxious.  A  little  inquiry  reveals  the  abom- 
inable truth.  Her  spiritual  adviser  has  taught 
her  that  the  Church  is  the  only  sure  means 
of  salvation,  and  that  unbelievers  shall  be  lost. 
She  knows  her  father  to  be  an  unbeliever.  Is  it 
possible,  she  has  asked,  that  so  good  and  gentle 
a  man  is  in  spiritual  danger.^  And  instead  of 
evading  the  question,  the  priest  has  answered 
that,  alas,  he  is.  The  opportunity  of  salvation 
can  be  declined  only  at  the  gravest  peril;  there 
is  such  a  thing,  no  doubt,  as  invincible  ignorance, 
but  one  cannot  prudently  rely  on  so  slender  a 
chance.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  her  dear  father 
may  be  brought  to  see  the  truth;  if  not,  she 
can  never  feel  assured  of  his  companionship  in 
a  better  world  than  this.  Thus,  exclaimed  my 
friend,  these  Catholics  sow  dissension  and  un- 
happiness  in  any  family  which  you  sujBFer  them 
to  invade. 

But  how  could  an  honest  priest  answer  other- 
wise? I  asked;  if  he  believes  this  to  be  true,  he 
would  be  false  to  his  God  by  disguising  it  for  an 
instant.  That  was  not  the  question,  my  friend 
felt.  To  sow  discord  in  happy  homes  is  the  most 
devilish  thing  that  human  perversity  can  do ;  and 
that  is  what  you  may  expect  from  all  your  priests. 


THE   QUESTION   OF   RELIGION    289 

In  other  words,  this  most  conscientious  of 
liberal  Christians  proved  unable  to  tolerate,  in 
a  fellow  being,  any  degree  of  orthodoxy  which 
should  not  admit  a  scheme  of  salvation  as  uni- 
versal as  his  own.  For  that  matter,  I  am  not 
sure  that  he  admitted  the  need  of  salvation  for 
anybody.  Like  good  Yankee  Unitarians,  he 
seemed  to  be  of  opinion  that  any  of  us,  if  he 
choose,  may  save  himself;  that  no  one  knows 
what  will  become  of  us,  but  that,  if  we  do  our 
best  according  to  our  lights,  we  may  go  to  sleep 
without  fear.  That  a  Protestant,  warned  that 
Protestantism  is  the  road  to  Hell, —  a  friend  in 
France  quoted  me  that  phrase  from  a  French  vil- 
lage sermon,  —  remains  a  Protestant  at  his  own 
risk,  he  held  to  be  a  monstrous  proposition,  as  in- 
tolerable as  that  a  Catholic,  who  has  a  chance  of 
Protestant  truth,  should  be  in  spiritual  danger. 

So  far  as  I  could  see,  his  state  of  mind  was 
precisely  the  counterpart  of  what  he  condemned. 
He  thought  himself  tolerant;  and  the  same  view 
of  themselves  was  taken  by  many  sound  French 
Catholics  of  my  acquaintance.  Neither  the  one 
party  nor  the  other,  however,  seemed  able  to 
understand  the  true  secret  of  toleration,  —  an 
efficacious  faith  that,  if  everybody  is  free  to  state 
and  to  follow  what  he  believes  to  be  spiritual 
truth,  the  truth  may  be  trusted  to  prevail.     One 

19 


290       THE  FRANCE  OF  TODAY 

can  perceive  with  deep  sympathy  why  they  all 
feel  so.  They  are  of  a  race  which  loves  system, 
which  believes  in  logic,  which  respects  authority. 
They  are  carried  away  by  the  very  virtue  which 
is  most  surely  theirs.  The  orthodox  overrate  the 
potency  of  authority,  and  heretics  overestimate 
its  dangers.  Toleration  —  true  liberty  —  is  not 
yet  a  part  of  the  honest  faith  of  either. 

To  correct  this  error  —  if  error  it  be  —  there 
is  no  means  but  to  study  the  facts  of  spiritual 
history.  No  one  can  be  sure  of  reading  them 
aright.  But  there  seems  more  than  reason  to 
find  in  them  a  lesson  which  should  reduce  our 
philosophic  and  religious  certainties  to  humility. 
In  brief,  however  impregnable  our  systematic 
conclusions  may  seem  to  us,  however  surely  they 
may  seem  to  involve  our  duty  to  control,  as  best 
we  may,  the  errors  of  our  f ellowmen,  one  fact  re- 
mains persistently  true  to  human  experience.  So 
far  as  religious  authority  has  attempted  to  exert 
itself  over  matters  other  than  spiritual,  it  has 
come  to  grief.  So  far  as  temporal  authority  has 
meddled  with  spiritual  matters,  beyond  the  scope 
of  earthly  politics,  it  has  come  to  grief  as  well. 
Spiritual  authority  has  doubtless  had  the  full  jus- 
tification of  logic  and  system;  and  so  has  tem- 
poral. Each,  we  may  freely  admit,  has  been 
devotedly  honest.    Each  has  failed.    We  know 


THE   QUESTION   OF   RELIGION    291 

not  what  may  be  the  course  of  things  in  Heaven. 
The  lesson  of  human  experience  must  teach  us 
that,  for  all  the  protests  of  systematic  reason, 
the  wisest  course  on  earth  is  the  course  of  tolera- 
tion and  of  mutual  forbearance. 

As  yet  there  is  little  sign  that  the  French  are 
willing  to  learn  this  lesson.  Until  they  do,  the 
question  of  religion  in  France  must  remain  one 
of  action  and  reaction  —  of  recurrent  intoler- 
ance, as  one  side  or  another  chances  for  a  while 
to  possess  national  power.  On  both  sides  there 
will  long  be  what  we  may  find  on  both  today  — 
noble  impulse,  devoted  consecration  to  duty,  and 
passionate  misunderstanding  of  the  other.  If 
the  free-thinkers  had  their  way  now,  there  would 
be  some  such  persecution  of  the  Catholics  as  the 
Catholics  inflicted  on  the  Protestants  when  they 
revoked  the  Edict  of  Nantes.  Let  the  Catholics 
come  back  into  power,  as  they  pretty  surely  will, 
and  the  story  would  be  retold  again  in  its  elder 
terms.  And  so  to  the  end  —  unless,  by  and  by, 
the  wonderful  intelligence  of  France  awaken  to 
the  true  wisdom  of  a  toleration  as  yet  beyond  its 
grasp.  They  believe  that  they  believe  in  freedom. 
They  cannot  seem  to  understand  that  freedom 
in  the  affairs  of  the  spirit  means  that  we  must 
render  unto  Caesar  the  things  which  are  Caesar's 
and  unto  God  the  things  which  are  God's. 


VII 

THE  REVOLUTION  AND  ITS  EFFECTS 

OUR  consideration  of  religion  in  France 
has  inevitably  touched  on  the  most  sali- 
ent fact  of  modern  French  history  —  the 
Revolution.  The  immediate  social  and  political 
results  of  this  catastrophe  have  probably  been 
much  less  radical  than  is  generally  supposed; 
but  memory  of  it  and  the  tradition  recur  every- 
where. Everywhere,  too,  this  memory  and  these 
traditions  remain  so  vital  that  few  can  regard 
them  dispassionately.  They  still  excite  either 
enthusiasm  or  resentment,  they  are  still  viewed 
with  honest  and  intense  partisan  spirit.  The 
better  you  know  France,  the  more  clearly  you 
see  that,  as  yet,  no  study  of  the  Revolution  has 
seemed  fair  to  any  Frenchman  who  has  not 
been  disposed  to  accept  its  conclusions  before- 
hand. 

This  was  brought  concretely  to  my  notice  dur- 
ing a  hasty  visit  to  France  a  few  years  ago.  The 
admirers  of  Taine  had  proposed  to  erect  some 
monument  in  his  memory.     To  me  this  plan 


THE  REVOLUTION  293 

seemed  obviously  proper;  for  I  had  been  dis- 
posed to  think  that  of  all  the  writers  of  nineteenth- 
century  France  none  had  been  more  admirable 
than  Taine,  both  in  conscience  and  in  influence. 
The  fact  that  I  had  not  always  been  persuaded  to 
accept  his  conclusions  —  particularly  in  the  mat- 
ter of  English  literature  —  in  no  wise  impaired 
my  respect  for  him.  He  seemed  always  pre- 
cise, always  intelligent,  and  above  all  incessantly 
suggestive.  The  vigor  of  his  thought  and  the 
animation  of  his  style  compelled  you  to  more 
alert  thinking  than  you  could  have  done  without 
him.  Even  when  this  cogitation  led  to  results 
widely  different  from  his  own,  accordingly,  you 
gratefully  acknowledged  him  as  the  master  whose 
stimulating  power  had  most  truly  helped  you. 
There  was  never  monument  projected,  I  fancied, 
for  which  more  general  approval  might  have  been 
assured.  Yet,  to  my  surprise,  the  plan  aroused 
bitter  opposition. 

At  that  time  I  had  already  the  pleasure  of 
knowing  the  sincere  French  free-thinker  con- 
cerning whose  religious  opinions  I  have  had 
something  to  say.  When  I  ventured  to  express 
to  him  my  wonder  why  anyone  in  France  should 
hesitate  to  pay  honor  to  the  memory  of  Taine,  I 
found  that  I  had  waked  the  wrong  passenger. 
The  disciples  of  Taine  are  accustomed  to  believe 


294      THE  FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

that  his  work  in  French  history  pricked  the 
bubble  of  revolutionary  legend.  To  my  radical 
friend  Taine  seemed  rather  to  have  blasphemed 
the  spirit  of  the  Revolution.  Publicly  to  honor 
his  memory  would  therefore  be  to  range  yourself 
against  the  Rights  of  Man.  So  to  range  your- 
self would  be  to  undo  the  work  of  a  century  of 
humanitarian  effort  —  nothing  less  than  to  dis- 
grace France.  It  was  as  if  I  had  suggested  to 
an  old-time  Boston  Abolitionist  that  some  na- 
tional Walhalla  at  Washington  would  be  incom- 
plete without  the  figure  of  General  Lee. 

Neither  on  this  occasion  nor  on  any  other  could 
I  enter  intelligently  into  the  confused  details  of 
revolutionary  history.  To  do  so  would  require 
the  work  of  years,  doomed  to  results  which 
many  would  still  hold  partisan.  On  the  other 
hand,  convinced  of  the  sincerity  both  of  Taine 
and  of  my  friend,  and  convinced  that  they  were 
equally  devoted  in  their  loyalty  to  the  France 
which  bred  the  one  as  truly  as  the  other,  I 
found  this  little  talk  full  of  suggestion  as  to 
how  the  Revolution  affected  French  tempera- 
ment. This  temperamental  aspect  of  it,  and  of 
the  ensuing  course  of  French  history,  is  all  I 
shall  discuss.  This,  at  least,  —  apart  from  his- 
torical fact,  —  has  its  place  in  our  effort  to  un- 
derstand the  French  of  today. 


THE  REVOLUTION  295 

On  some  chief  features  of  their  national  tem- 
per we  have  touched  already.  Intellectually  this 
temperament  is  remarkable  for  two  contradictory 
phases  —  the  more  intolerantly  opposed  because 
of  the  exquisite  precision  with  which  the  French 
intellect  works  in  detail.  The  French  are  in- 
tensely fond  of  logical  system  —  a  fact  evident 
in  every  aspect  of  their  lives;  and  at  the  same 
time  their  passion  for  intellectual  candor  compels 
them  to  admit  unwelcome  fact  far  more  readily 
than  we  do.  Now,  as  we  have  clearly  reminded 
ourselves,  no  system  ever  devised  by  human  be- 
ings could  generalize  all  fact.  Every  political 
and  social  rule  must  always  have  its  exceptions. 
When  these  appear,  logical  minds  are  confronted 
with  the  question  of  what  shall  be  done  with 
them.  The  possible  courses  seem  three:  either 
the  unwelcome  fact  must  be  suppressed;  or  it 
must  be  ignored  —  treated  as  negligible;  or  else 
you  must  alter  your  system.  And  which  of  these 
courses  a  Frenchman  will  take,  in  any  given  case, 
he  himself  would  be  at  pains  to  predict.  The 
only  sure  thing  is  that  he  can  hardly  help  taking 
one  of  the  three. 

Emotionally,  meanwhile,  the  national  temper 
of  France  is  not  only  impulsively  generous;  it 
is  extremely  sensitive  to  generalized,  as  distin- 
guished from  individual,  appeals  to  human  sym- 


296       THE  FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

pathy.  In  every  phase  of  life  the  social  con- 
science, the  social  sensibility,  the  social  enthusi- 
asm of  the  French  is  more  highly  developed  than 
any  to  which  Americans  or  Englishmen  are  ac- 
customed. Even  in  their  private  relations  the 
jFrench  lay  less  stress,  on^personal  rectitude  than 
on  the  performance  of  social  duty.  The  para- 
dox results  that  while  they  may  sometimes  seem 
callously  indifferent  to  the  hardships  of  individ- 
uals, —  of  divorced  women,  for  example,  —  they 
are  capable  of  such  devotion  to  social  ideals  — 
like  that  of  the  foyer  —  as  with  us  would  de- 
mand, for  full  development  of  its  exaltation, 
the  stimulus  of  romantic  personal  passion.  To 
understand  with  any  true  sympathy  the  tempera- 
mental history  of  the  Revolution,  we  must  keep 
this  emotional  trait  in  mind. 

Confused,  still  confusing,  as  that  political  con- 
vulsion remains,  certain  general  facts  about  it  are 
growing  fairly  clear.  The  course  of  history  had 
long  tended  to  make  the  formal  systems  of  both 
government  and  society  inflexible.  This  had  re- 
sulted in  a  remarkably  obvious  development  of 
facts  —  political,  religious,  moral,  social  —  un- 
deniably incompatible  with  the  systems.  The 
temper  of  the  eighteenth  century  —  which  in  its 
higher  phase  was  genuinely  rational  and  philan- 
thropic —  compelled  intellectual  candor  to  admit 


THE   REVOLUTION  297 

these  facts  without  reserve.  The  precise  ques- 
tion became,  what  should  be  done  with  them? 
On  the  whole,  there  was  no  great  effort  to  sup- 
press them,  —  a  process  unwelcome  to  the  taste 
of  a  period  sensitive  to  the  delights  of  specula- 
tive reasoning.  The  tendencies  were  rather,  on 
the  one  hand,  to  ignore  them,  with  the  graceful 
recognition  of  epigram,  or  on  the  other  hand, 
if  you  took  the  matter  more  deeply  to  heart,  to 
see  what  could  be  done  towards  altering  your 
system  to  fit  them.  These  tendencies  were  clearly 
irreconcilable.  As  they  came  to  clash,  they  deeply 
stirred  on  both  sides  a  kind  of  ideal  emotion, 
best  understood  if  we  will  conceive  the  spiritual 
conflict  as  one  between  men  who  believed  tradi- 
tional system  in  duty  bound  to  ignore  inconsistent 
fact  and  men  who  believed,  on  the  contrary,  that 
in  view  of  such  fact  the  interests  of  all  human- 
ity demanded  a  reconstruction  of  traditional 
system. 

Generalizations  like  this  require  specific  ex- 
amples. I  remember  none  more  vivid  than  you 
may  find  to  this  day  in  a  picturesque  Burgun- 
dian  chateau  which  escaped  revolutionary  pil- 
lage. It  lies  in  the  heart  of  the  country,  so  that 
to  get  there  you  must  drive  a  good  way  over  un- 
frequented roads.  It  stands  on  a  slope,  over- 
looking the  little  village  which  its  master  used  to 


298       THE   FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

own.  It  is  still  surrounded  by  its  gardens  and  its 
park;  and,  both  inside  and  out,  it  is  very  little 
altered  since  the  time  when  Louis  XIV  sent  its 
owner,  Bussy  Rabutin,  to  pass  a  good  many  years 
there,  in  exile  from  court  for  misbehavior.  Pre- 
cisely to  understand  how  this  gentleman  had  mis- 
behaved would  carry  one  farther  into  the  scandals 
and  the  intrigues  of  his  time  than  I  have  ever  had 
patience  to  go.  Among  other  things  he  had  writ- 
ten stories  of  which  the  acceptable  lubricity  had 
failed  to  atone  for  the  fact  that  under  trans- 
parent pseudonyms  they  set  forth  the  frailties 
of  his  friends  and  his  enemies  with  a  precision 
beyond  the  range  of  discretion.  The  amuse- 
ment he  devised  for  his  exile  accordingly  seems 
characteristic. 

In  general,  this  was  to  decorate  the  panelled 
walls  of  his  rooms  with  portraits  of  everybody 
whom  he  conceived  to  deserve  such  honor. 
There  is  a  gallery  of  the  French  kings,  from  Hugh 
Capet  to  Louis  the  Great;  there  is  another  con- 
secrated to  the  great  soldiers  of  history  and  of 
France,  from  Hector,  and  Alexander,  and  Caesar, 
and  Bertrand  du  Guesclin,  and  Bayard,  to  his 
bewigged  and  complacent  self;  and  there  are 
other  manifestations  of  his  taste  in  its  innocent 
phases.  The  more  remarkable  aspect  of  his  col- 
lection, however,  is  the  coolness  with  which  he 


THE   REVOLUTION        /       299 

inscribed  under  the  portraits  of  his  contempo- 
raries his  opinions  of  their  conduct  and  charac- 
ter. One  of  these  comments  runs  somewhat  as 
follows:  ''Isabelle  d'Z.,  Marquise  d^  *  *  *  a 
laquelle  personne  ne  pouvait  refuser  ni  son  coeur 
ni  sa  bourse^  et  qui  faisait  peu  de  chose  de  la 
bagatelle.^*  And  a  whole  room  is  devoted  to 
emblematic  designs,  conceived  and  they  say  exe- 
cuted too  by  his  own  unaided  ingenuity,  all  re- 
iterating his  displeasure  with  a  lady,  the  wife  of 
somebody  else,  who  had  not  seen  fit  to  carry  her 
devotion  to  him  so  far  as  voluntarily  to  share  his 
rural  exile. 

Now,  whether  these  statements  are  as  true  as 
those  in  which  he  records  what  beauty  was  mis- 
tress of  which  king  I  did  not  trouble  myself  to 
inquire.  The  incontrovertible  fact  is  that  they 
were  written,  to  solace  his  virtual  imprisonment, 
by  a  great  gentleman,  whose  windows,  like  his  gar- 
dens and  his  park  and  his  preserves,  commanded 
a  view  of  his  little  village,  still  clustering  about 
its  venerable  church.  Here  generations  of  labo- 
rious peasants  were  succeeding  one  another  with 
no  chance  of  sharing  his  complicated  privileges, 
and  furthermore  under  the  burden  of  increasing 
taxation,  which  they  were  beginning  to  believe 
devoted  to  the  support  of  such  virtues  as  they 
could  hardly  help  knowing  to  be  inscribed  on  the 


300       THE   FRANCE   OF   TODAY 

walls  of  his  panelled  apartments.  System  and 
fact  have  rarely  appeared  in  sharper  contrast. 
The  best  defence  for  the  system  under  which 
Bussy  Rabutin  and  his  friends  enjoyed  privilege 
was  that  they  were  really  the  betters  of  common 
folk.  And  here  was  one  of  themselves,  devoting 
laborious  years  to  the  assertion  that  they  were 
about  as  worthless  as  humanity  can  be.  He 
may  have  done  it  on  purpose.  I  have  never 
taken  the  pains  to  find  out  whether  he  meant  to 
make  trouble,  perhaps  as  a  resentful  reformer. 
The  fact  that  he  did  what  he  did  is  enough  for  us ; 
whatever  his  intention,  he  proclaimed  system  and 
fact  to  be  menacingly  at  odds. 

This  was  a  full  century  before  the  Revolution. 
During  the  last  days  of  the  old  regime  the  same 
sort  of  thing  was  even  more  salient.  The  two 
great  personages  of  the  French  Church  whose 
names  are  now  most  familiar  were  probably  the 
Cardinal  de  Rohan  and  Talleyrand,  Bishop  of 
Autun,  —  the  one  remembered  as  the  hero  of  a 
famous  intrigue  in  which  he  was  led  by  impostors 
to  believe  his  personal  charms  irresistible  to  the 
Queen;  the  other,  pliantly  disfrocked  by  the 
Revolution,  popularly  supposed  to  have  devel- 
oped into  the  most  mendacious  public  man  of 
his  uncandid  epoch.  They  had  their  merits, 
both  of  them;  but  these  merits  were  hardly  of 


THE   REVOLUTION  301 

the  kind  on  which  a  privileged  clergy,  in  cure  of 
the  souls  of  a  nation,  could  prudently  rest  its 
case  in  a  debate  between  fact  and  system.  At 
that  time  the  Queen,  not  yet  tested  by  martyr- 
dom, was  held  light-headed  even  by  her  friends, 
and  otherwise  light  by  the  cynical  scandal  of 
the  many  courtiers  who  hated  her.  Monsieur  de 
Nolhac  tells  us  that  not  one  of  the  monstrous 
accusations  brought  against  her  by  the  revolu- 
tionary tribunal  was  invented  by  the  public 
prosecutor  or  the  rabble.  You  can  find  them 
all  in  court  lampoons  and  songs,  current  at  Ver- 
sailles when  they  still  fancied  that  system  was 
strong  enough  to  ignore  fact  forever,  and  never 
troubled  themselves  about  what  they  might  pre- 
tend to  be  fact,  so  long  as  it  amused  them.  The 
crucial  fact  is  that  these  songs  and  these  lam- 
poons existed,  not  whether  there  was  a  grain  of 
truth  in  them.  A  royal  prince  of  those  times 
played  Figaro  in  court  theatricals,  and  the  whole 
company  was  highly  entertained. 

The  very  mention  of  Figaro  brings  us  to  the 
other  aspect  of  the  situation.  To  go  no  farther, 
the  popularity  of  Beaumarchais  as  a  dramatist 
is  in  itself  an  extraordinary  fact.  No  one  else 
had  pointed  out  with  equal  wit  and  precision  the 
weakness  of  those  who  to  enjoy  the  privileges  of 
systematically  established  rank  need  only  give 


302       THE   FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

themselves  the  trouble  to  be  born.  That  his 
comedies  were  not  suppressed  implies  a  freedom 
of  speech  and  thought  hardly  equalled  at  any 
later  period  of  French  history.  And  this  free- 
dom of  thought  and  speech  was  devoting  itself, 
as  a  matter  both  of  fashion  and  of  conscience,  to 
refreshing  speculations  concerning  the  Rights  of 
Man.  These  rights,  as  we  have  seen,  are  based 
on  an  assumption  about  human  nature  inconsist- 
ent with  authoritative  privilege.  The  old  system 
could  be  reasonably  defended  only  so  long  as 
you  maintained  that  men  are  naturally  so  de- 
praved that,  badly  as  they  behave  under  restraint, 
they  would  behave  worse  if  uncontrolled.  If, 
on  the  other  hand,  men  are  not  born  in  sin,  it 
seems  reasonable  to  suppose  that  they  might 
probably  behave  better  if  left  free  to  do  so.  So 
the  temperamental  conflict  slowly  defined  itself. 
^^^JEyerybody  admitted  that  system  and  fact  could 
*  not  be  reconciled.  One  side  held  that  we  should 
ignore  fact,  except  so  far  as  we  can  temper  des- 
potism by  epigram;  the  other  held,  with  in- 
creasing enthusiasm,  that  the  time  was  come  to 
readjust  system.  This  more  modern  spirit  did 
not  intentionally  demand  anarchy;  but  it  eagerly 
advocated  a  new  system  to  supplant  the  old,  rec- 
ognizing the  newly  demonstrated  truths  that  hu- 
man nature  is  not  sinful  and  that  society  need 


THE  REVOLUTION  803 

V  . 

not  repress  it,  and  embracing   them   with  full 

logical  consistency. 

There  can  be  little  question,  I  think,  that  the 
high  hopes  of  French  revolutionists  were  both 
encouraged  and  confirmed  by  the  course  of 
American  history  after  1775.  The  story  of  La- 
fayette is  the  classical  example  of  this  influence. 
Himself  of  the  privileged  class,  but  an  eager  and 
disinterested  partisan  of  the  Rights  of  Man,  he 
was  in  early  youth  an  oflScer  attached  to  some 
garrison  in  eastern  France.  Here,  at  table,  he  met 
an  English  prince,  not  minutely  informed  about 
the  revolutionary  disturbances  in  the  American 
colonies,  who  led  him  to  believe  that  these  re- 
mote provinces  had  risen  in  arms  to  assert  their 
right  to  establish  society  on  the  new  model.  The 
ardent  young  Frenchman's  imagination  was  kin- 
dled. He  did  not  rest  until,  after  a  voyage  dur- 
ing which,  in  his  own  words,  the  Atlantic  and 
himself  affected  each  other  with  sentiments  of 
mutual  sadness,  he  had  placed  his  services  at  the 
disposal  of  America.  He  fought  for  us  bravely 
and  well,  winning  for  himself  a  place  among 
our  national  heroes  second  in  popular  memory 
only  to  that  of  Washington  ;  and  to  the  very 
end  of  his  life,  some  fifty  years  later,  he  was 
the  Frenchman  who  knew  and  who  loved  us 
best. 


304       THE   FRANCE   OF   TODAY 

Yet,  all  the  while,  he  seems  never  to  have  un- 
derstood —  hardly  to  have  suspected  —  the  fun- 
damental nature  of  the  American  Revolution  and 
of  the  enduring  government  thereby  brought 
into  being.  Our  American  forefathers  used  the 
terms  of  French  philanthropic  philosophy,  just 
as  we  use  them  to  this  day  and  as  our  children 
will  probably  continue  to  use  them  so  long  as 
our  republic  exists.  None  of  us  have  ever 
stopped  to  define  them,  even  for  ourselves;  in 
all  likelihood  we  never  shall  ;  to  Lafayette  and 
to  America  alike  it  always  seemed  that  we  spoke 
a  common  language  of  the  mind  and  of  the  heart. 
So,  in  many  emotional  moods,  we  did.  But,  on 
the  other  hand,  the  liberty  for  which  the  Ameri- 
can Revolution  was  fought  had  a  character 
different  from  that  of  the  liberty  proclaimed  by 
the  revolutionary  spirits  of  France.  To  them 
liberty  meant,  on  the  whole,  a  new  phUosopIite 
system  of  government,  resting  in  final  analysis 
on  dogmatic  denial  of  the  old  Christian  assertion 
that  human  nature  is  evil;  it  was  therefore  deeply 
subversive  both  of  traditional  beliefs  and  of  the 
traditional  constitutiqii^JB- the  kingdom  where 
they  desired  it  to  have  sway.  ^  To  us  liberty 
meant  the  preservation  of  our  own  remote  soci- 
ety and  government  from  all  foreign  interference. 
During  the  one  hundred  and  fifty  years  which 


THE   REVOLUTION  305 

had  elapsed  since  the  foundation  of  colonies  in 
Virginia  and  in  New  England,  America  had  unwit- 
tingly developed  something  like  a  common  law  — 
an  unwritten  constitution,  political  and  social  — 
of  its  own;  and  this  had  been  confirmed  by  an- 
cestral experience,  virtually  immemorial.  When, 
in  any  country,  a  political  system  has  descended 
from  a  generation  no  longer  on  earth,  it  has  just 
such  sanction  of  tradition  as  would  strengthen 
institutions  a  thousand  years  old.  Anyone  who 
has  watched  the  life  of  American  colleges  can 
observe  this  truth  in  a  fantastic  little  form,  the 
more  instructive  for  its  very  comicalities.  At 
most,  a  student  remains  in  college  four  years  ; 
with  each  four  years,  accordingly,  the  under- 
graduate population  is  completely  changed.  Let 
some  legal  innovation  occur,  or  some  new  social 
custom  arise.  There  will  be  a  great  bother  for 
the  moment;  but  with  each  new  year  there  will 
come  to  college  a  body  of  men  who  have  never 
known  anything  else  there;  in  four  years  the 
change  of  population  will  be  complete;  in  five, 
every  one  will  assure  you  that  this  state  of  things 
—  not  yet  six  years  old  —  has  existed  from  be- 
fore human  memory,  and  that  to  meddle  with 
it  would  be  a  daringly  radical  violation  of  sacred 
tradition.  Wherefore  shrewd  governors  of  Amer- 
ican colleges  nip  unwelcome  novelties  in  the  bud, 


306       THE  FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

and  graft  welcome  ones  in  their  stead,  assured 
that  before  long  they  will  flourish  with  all  the 
mysterious  strength  of  immemorial  sanction. 

Their  own  independence,  their  own  common 
law,  —  free  from  interference  even  on  the  part  of 
sovereign  England,  —  was  what  American  Revo- 
lutionists really  fought  for.  What  they  opposed 
was  not  exasperating  or  obsolete  tyranny;  it 
was  reactionary  innovation  —  the  reassertion  of 
a  power  so  long  disused  that  it  had  lost  the  sup- 
port of  tradition.  Except  for  the  suppression 
of  the  crown,  the  constitution  of  every  state  in 
America  remained  virtually  unchanged.  What 
is  more,  the  substitution  of  republican  govern- 
ment for  the  previous  form,  nominally  monarchi- 
cal, was  not  much  of  a  change.  It  amounted  to 
little  more  than  extending  to  the  chief  executive 
office  the  same  principle  of  popular  election  on 
which  almost  all  other  offices  were  already  based 
by  immemorial  custom ;  and  in  more  than  one  of 
the  colonies  even  the  governors  had  been  elected 
by  the  people.  Radical  as  the  terms  of  our  Rev- 
olution may  have  sounded,  accordingly,  and  radi- 
cal as  the  new  forms  of  American  government 
may  have  appeared,  they  were  really  conserva- 
tive. What  they  actually  maintained  was  not  a 
new  system  of  human  rights  and  policy;  it  was 
thg  system  which  had  grown  strong  among  our^ 


THE  REVOLUTION  307 

selves  in  the  regular  course  of  nature.  Herein 
lay  our  true  vitality. 

To  Lafayette,  the  while,  generously  enthusi- 
astic throughout  his  life,  liberty  seems  always  to 
have  signified  a  philanthropic  philosophical  doc- 
trine. The  fact  that  he  had  himself  seen  it  vic- 
torious in  America,  and  able  there  to  lay  the  foun- 
dations of  enduring  government,  indicated  that 
it  could  do  so  anywhere.  That  it  could  develop 
otherwise  under  other  conditions.  —  where  in- 
stead of  maintaining  established  traditions  and 
institutions,  it  must  begin  and  persist  by  means 
of  destruction  and  innovation  —  does  not  seem 
to  have  occurred  to  him.  So  far  as  one  can 
now  perceive,  he  was  never  able  to  understand 
why  what  worked  so  well  in  the  American  colo- 
nies should  come  to  grief  in  his  beloved  France. 

Something  similar  seems  true  of  the  remark- 
able impression  made  in  France  by  the  personal- 
ity and  the  character  of  Franklin.  During  the 
celebration  of  his  two-hundredth  birthday  I  hap- 
pened to  hear  the  suggestive  remark  that  he 
was  an  extraordinary  example  of  how  the  en- 
vironment of  America,  during  the  uncrowded 
years  of  his  youth  and  his  manhood,  could 
affect  the  development  of  a  man  of  genius  whose 
native  characteristics  were  not  the  rather  ideal 
ones  of  American  tradition,  but  the  purely  prac- 


308       THE   FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

tical  ones  of  the  old  English  yeomanry.  He 
was  not,  you  will  remember,  sprung  from  the 
earlier  emigration  to  New  England.  To  the 
French  of  his  later  years,  on  the  other  hand, 
Franklin  appeared  to  be  not  an  Englishman,  nor 
yet  a  man  who  had  grown  to  his  maturity  among 
economic  and  social  conditions  impossible  in  any 
old  and  densely  settled  part  of  the  world.  He 
appeared  rather  to  be  a  demonstration  of  what 
human  nature  in  general  might  grow  to  be,  if 
society  and  government  were  once  established 
on  the  principles  of  the  Revolution. 

Though  the  sympathy  of  the  French  with  rev- 
olutionary America  was  undoubtedly  compli- 
cated with  political  animosity  toward  England, 
we  may  easily  over-emphasize  this  aspect  of  the 
situation.  There  can  be  no  reasonable  question 
that  it  was  sincerely  generous  as  well,  ardently 
philanthropic,  and  fired  by  such  enthusiasm  as 
is  always  characteristic  of  France  when  French 
emotion  is  stirred.  There  can  be  no  reasonable 
question,  either,  that  the  revolutionary  impulse 
of  the  French  received  great  encouragement 
from  the  successful  result  of  revolution  in  Amer- 
ica. The  speculative  conclusions  of  philan- 
thropic philosophy  seemed  thereby  vindi'cated. 
The  difference  between  a  conservative  revolu- 
tion and  a  destructive,  between  one  based  on 


THE  REVOLUTION  309 

rights  already  enjoyed  and  one  demanding  rights 
untesledT)y  experience,  no  one  noticed. 

When  we  thus  conceive  the  Revolution  in 
France,  it  looks  simpler.  Amid  all  the  distrac- 
tions of  its  details,  we  can  feel  honestly  sure, 
whatever  our  sympathies,  that  a  great  part  of 
its  vital  power  lay  in  the  genuine  enthusiasm  of 
its  philanthropic  impulse.  Humanity  was  suffer- 
ing needlessly.  It  was  belied  by  the  system 
which  at  once  oppressed  it,  and  defended  the 
oppression  by  declaring  human  nature  depraved. 
Franklin,  and  the  course  of  America,  showed 
the  falsehood  of  this  relic  of  mediaeval  delusion. 
Left  to  himself,  man  would  grow  good ;  left  to 
their  own  collective  wisdom,  men  would  govern 
themselves  better  than  priests  or  kings  had  ever 
governed  them.  Outworn  system,  benumbing 
tradition,  must  be  cast  aside.  Superstition  must 
yield  to  intelligence.  Some  new  system,  neg- 
lecting tradition  and  established  in  the  full  light 
of  reason,  must  recognize  the  facts  —  philosophic, 
social,  political  —  which  elder  time  had  stupidly 
or  cynically  ignored.  Once  set  up  this  new 
system,  logical,  consistent,  complete,  comprehen- 
sive, philanthropic ;  and  humanity,  no  longer 
belied,  need  no  longer  suffer.  In  its  nobler 
phase,  at  least,  —  and  even  those  who  most 
deplore  the  Revolution  must  acknowledge  that 


310       THE   FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

it  had  a  temperamentally  noble  phase,  —  this 
movement  believed  that  it  could  inaugurate  a 
new  and  a  better  dispensation  for  the  whole  hu- 
man race.  With  equal  candor  even  those  who 
love  it  best  must  admit  that,  in  the  perspective 
of  a  century,  it  has  revealed  aspects  which  might 
give  color  to  the  contrary  opinion  that  it  was  the 
first  plunge  of  civilization  into  a  still  rising  tide 
of  barbarism. 

There  is  no  piece  of  literature  in  which 
the  temper  of  its  origin  and  its  course  is  more 
vividly  recorded  than  we  may  find  them  in  the 
"  Prelude  "  of  Wordsworth.  The  passages  which 
describe  his  first  journey  to  France  are  aglow  with 
the  inspiration  of  those  hopeful  days.  It  was  as 
if  the  whole  nation  had  awakened  from  some 
nightmare  to  the  cool  sunrise  of  a  happy  morn- 
ing; and  the  poet  himself,  full  of  dreams  for 
the  future  of  humanity,  found  this  widespread 
rejoicing  replete  with  philanthropic  augury. 
What  he  says  of  it  is  vague,  unsystematic, 
scattered;  but  the  spirit  of  his  poem  sinks  deep 
in  memory,  like  the  breath  of  flowers  in  some 
springtime  atmosphere.  The  passages  where  he 
later  sets  down  his  grief  at  the  subsequent  course 
of  the  Revolution  are  longer  and  more  poignant. 
That  awakening  of  humanity  swiftly  revealed 
itself  as  only  another  dream,  more  evanescent 


THE   REVOLUTION  /  311 

than  the  nightmares  of  the  past.  Philanthropy 
found  itself  inevitably  confronted  with  the  sys- 
tems and  the  beliefs  of  a  thousand  years.  It  was 
kindled  to  consciously  destructive  fervor.  „  What 
would  not  yield,  and  what  would  not  suffer  itself 
to  be  ignored,  must  be  suppressed.  The  old 
system  must  give  way  to  the  new,  which  swiftly 
revealed  itself  the  more  tyrannical  of  the  two. 
Meanwhile  the  old  system  proved  sadly  stubborn. 
The  lopping  of  its  branches  in  no  wise  uprooted 
it;  rather  the  process  served,  like  pruning,  to 
strengthen  the  remaining  fibres  of  its  stock. 
People  of  the  elder  temper,  the  ^migr^Sy  the  no- 
bility in  general,  and  whoever  loved  established 
tradition,  insisted  on  trying  to  ignore  the  Revo- 
lution throughout.  Indeed,  they  have  hardly 
yet  given  up  their  hopeless  effort.  Philanthropy, 
enthusiasm,  the  Rights  of  Man,  ran  to  murderous 
excess.  The  watchwords  of  the  Revolution  — 
Liberty,  Equality,  and  Fraternity  —  remained 
full  of  generous  sound  and  of  inspiringly  pure 
philosophic  meaning;  but  the  sentiments  for 
which  they  came  to  stand  curdled  fast  into 
fierce  hatred  of  whoever  opposed  or  questioned 
their  arbitrary  course.  At  least,  this  is  the 
mood  which  possesses  you  as  you  read  the  disen- 
chanted lines  of  the  later  books  in  Wordsworth's 
"Prelude." 


312       THE  FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

Incomplete  though  this  view  of  the  situation 
be;  it  is  at  once  simple  and  true  to  the  relics 
of  the  period.  Anyone  who  travels  in  modern 
France  must  everywhere  perceive  an  amazing 
accumulation  of  tragic  evidence  that,  in  one  tre- 
mendous aspect,  the  period  of  the  Revolution 
was  appalling.  Philanthropy  and  philosophy 
attempted  to  ignore  historic  tradition  as  blindly 
as  historic  tradition  had  ever  attempted  to  ignore 
other  things  than  itself.  They  strove  abruptly 
to  end  one  period  of  historic  life,  to  establish 
a  complete  and  systematic  new  one;  and  this 
they  attempted  with  uncompromising  enthusiasm 
among  the  people  which  still  remains,  in  pri- 
vate temper,  the  most  frugally  prudent,  the  most 
instinctively  conservative  of  the  modern  world. 
They  not  only  assailed  political  institutions  and 
legal  privileges,  eager  to  clear  such  obstacles  from 
their  way  ;  as  we  have  already  seen,  they  sup- 
pressed the  religion  of  the  country,  turning  into 
a  crime,  by  legislative  decree,  what  had  previ- 
ously been  accepted  as  a  duty.  If  some  pas- 
sionate reformers  of  today  should  send  to  jail, 
without  notice,  any  couple  whom  they  could 
prove  to  have  been  legally  married,  they  would 
hardly  disturb  society  more.  We  have  touched 
already  on  the  colossal  emptiness  of  the  Pan- 
theon—  the  shrine  from   whence  its  God  has 


THE   REVOLUTION  313 

been  east  out.  You  can  find  more  instantly 
palpable  evidences  of  revolutionary  destruction 
everywhere  —  in  the  secularized  churches,  in  the 
ruined  houses  of  the  country  nobles,  and  in  the 
strange  names  of  the  present  possessors  of  castles 
and  parks  which  chanced  to  escape  destruction. 
Or  go  to  the  Municipal  Museum  of  Paris,  now 
installed  in  the  Hotel  Carnavalet,  which  used  to 
be  the  town  house  of  Madame  de  Sevigne,  and 
which  happens  to  be  remarkably  well  preserved. 
The  contents  are  arrayed  in  chronological  order, 
from  prehistoric  times  to  the  present  day.  There 
are  relics  of  Roman  Paris,  of  the  mediaeval  city, 
of  the  Paris  of  the  Renaissance,  and  of  the  long 
persistence  of  the  old  regime,  from  Henry  IV's 
time  to  that  of  Louis  XVI.  Then  comes  an 
abrupt  change.  The  rooms  devoted  to  the 
period  of  the  Revolution  seem  full  of  objects 
from  a  different  race,  a  different  epoch.  The 
older  work,  fallen  into  triviality  though  it  finally 
were,  preserves  that  exquisite  something  which 
we  recognize  as  instinctive  style.  It  seems  a  part 
of  nature,  —  made  as  it  is  because  for  the  mo- 
ment everybody  feels  that  things  ought  to  be 
made  so.  In  comparison  the  newer  work  seems 
crude,  deliberate,  intentional,  impotent.  It  has 
rude  vigor,  it  has  plenty  of  misdirected  energy; 
it  incarnates,  if  you  will,  incalculable  force.    But 


814       THE   FRANCE   OF   TODAY 

it  has  a  certain  blatant  futility,  as  of  youth  pre- 
tending to  the  wisdom  of  maturity,  or  of  rudeness 
declaring  itself  the  better  of  manners,  just  be- 
cause, in  a  free  fight,  it  can  strike  more  knock- 
iown  blows.  It  stands,  beyond  question,  for 
power  that  must  be  recognized,  that  shall  per- 
sist, that  shall  endure.  But  in  itself  this  first 
manifestation  of  new  power  is  more  transitory 
than  the  things  it  asserts  outworn. 

A  conspicuous  monument  at  Lyons  will  illus- 
trate what  I  mean.  That  city  suffered  more 
from  the  Revolution  than  any  other  in  the  coun- 
try. At  one  time,  I  believe,  they  tried  to  raze  it, 
and  so  nearly  did  so  that  you  must  search  there 
long  for  anything  to  suggest  that  the  ancient 
capital  of  the  Caesars  was  inhabited  by  human 
beings  before  the  nineteenth  century.  Accord- 
ingly, it  is  with  a  sense  of  pleasant  surprise  that 
you  recognize,  in  the  equestrian  statue  which 
dominates  the  Place  Bellecour,  its  chief  public 
place,  the  royal  figure  of  King  Louis  XIV. 
Here  at  last,  you  feel,  is  a  genuine  relic  of  the 
older  time,  spared  the  Lord  knows  why,  to  re- 
mind us  that  modernity  does  not  comprise  the 
whole  scope  of  history.  You  approach  it  in 
this  mood,  until  you  are  near  enough  to  read 
the  inscription  on  the  pedestal.  Then  you  dis- 
cover why  the  Grand  Monarch  still  keeps  his 


THE   REVOLUTION  815 

seat;  for  here  are  the  words  which  explain  his 
presence:  ^^ Chef  d'CEuvre  de  Lemoty  Sculpteur 
Lyonnais  "  —  "  The  Masterpiece  of  Lemot,  a 
Sculptor  of  Lyons."  Not  a  syllable  about  whom 
it  represents.  It  is  left  there  just  to  show  how 
skilfully  a  citizen  of  the  town  was  once  able  to 
direct  the  casting  of  bronze  in  monumental  form. 
It  is  a  lasting  monument  to  his  glory.  This  shall 
endure,  long  after  tyrants  and  tyranny  shall  be 
forgotten.  Nobody  seems  to  have  foreseen  that 
a  stray  traveller  from  across  the  seas  would  ever 
remember,  in  its  presence,  the  magnificence  of 
Louis  the  Great,  and  would  be  compelled,  even 
after  long  contemplation  of  the  masterpiece,  to 
remind  himself  at  home  of  the  sculptor's  name  by 
hunting  it  up  in  his  guide-book. 

If  there  be  one  trait  more  salient  than  another 
jn  the  mood  which  should  thus  strive  to  deny  the 
past  and  to  dictate  the  future,  that  trait  is  juve- 
nility. As  you  ponder  on  the  spirit  of  the  Revolu- 
tion, you  come  to  feel  in  it  not  a  few  qualities  best 
understood  if  you  liken  them  to  such  as  make 
you  at  once  love  children  and  find  them  exas- 
perating. It  had  an  almost  inspired  precision  / 
of  superficial  perception;  it  saw  what  was  the 
matter,  and  it  believed  that  it  saw  exactly  what 
ought  to  be  done.  It  was  angelically  generous 
in  spirit  —  or  at  least  it  meant  to  be.     It  was 


316       THE  FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

diabolically,  callously  cruel  to  any  obstacle  in 
the  way  of  its  righteous  purposes.  It  had,  to 
all  appearances,  no  idea  that  sucbL  ,a-tliing  as 
experience  had  ever  proved  dreams  Utopian^  or 
had  sadly  assured  us  that  we  can  build  solid 
structures  only  on  the  foundations  of  the  past. 
It  seemed  unaware,  indeed,  that  structures  of 
law  and  government,  of  conduct  and  morals, 
need  any  foundation  at  all.  Why  not  build 
at  once  on  the  quicksands  and  the  morasses 
which,  in  a  state  of  nature,  entangle  our  feet  ? 
One  would  be  at  pains  to  say  whether  such 
characteristics  as  these  are  more  obvious  in  the 
winning  futility  of  childhood,  with  its  purities 
and  its  naughtiness,  or  in  the  devoted  efforts  of 
the  French  Revolution  to  change  the  course  of 
national  and  of  human  history. 

The  attempt  was  sure  to  fail;  yet  that  is  not 
the  whole  story.  Even  unrealized  ideals  have  a 
vitality  of  their  own,  sometimes  the  more  potent 
when  they  are  no  longer  shown  to  be  futile  by 
the  inexorable  test  of  persistence.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  the  Revolution  did  much  destructive  work, 
particularly  on  the  surface  of  this  world.  It  strove, 
meanwhile,  to  construct.  Itjancied  that  its  de- 
crees would  suffice  to  sweep  old  system  away. 
It  fancied  that  it  had  recognized  and  proclaimed 
the  truths  on  which  new  system  could  be  based. 


THE   REVOLUTION  317 

Just  what  this  new  system  should  be,  except 
that  it  should  not  be  the  old,  it  failed  to  agree. 
Power  in  the  hands  of  the  people,  actual  sov- 
ereignty wielded  by  a  populace,  means  anarchy. 
To  this  end,  of  course,  the  Revolution  never 
came.  In  the  name  of  the  people  party  after 
party,  man  after  man,  issued  their  decrees  as 
autocratically  as  any  sovereign  of  former  days 
had  ever  done  in  his  own.  More  than  a  little 
philanthropic  purpose  was  accomplished,  they 
say.  Perhaps  it  was.  But  there  was  no  possi- 
bility of  establishing  it  by  means  of  a  new  sys- 
tem based  merely  on  philosophic  dogmatism. 
Phantasmagoric  the  spectacle  seems  now,  with 
its  ever- changing  figures,  all  surging  somewhither 
in  the  vast  ebullition  of  national  and  world  spirit 
let  loose  about  them.  Volcanic,  you  may  call  it 
all,  —  geyser-like.  It  could  not  last,  yet  it  could 
not  be  forgotten.  Its  destructiveness  was  a  fact 
—  enthusiastic  effort  can  cast  off  what  seem  like 
adamantine  chains.  Its  futility  was  a  fact  —  only 
time  can  cool  new  chains  into  adamant.  Its  gen- 
erosity was  a  fact  —  philanthropy  can  kindle  al- 
most divine  enthusiasm.  Its  existence,  however 
passing,  was  a  fact  —  that  you  have  not  accom- 
plished what  you  strive  for  can  never  undo  the 
fact  that  you  have  made  the  effort.  Reaction  was 
sure  to  ensue.    A  people  like  the  French,  who  love 


818       THE  FRANCE    OF  TODAY 

system  to  the  core,  can  never  long  pursue  the  road 
toward  anarchy.  Yet  when  reactionary  system 
came  upon  them,  it  found  not  the  old  France,  but 
a  new  one.  In  elder  France  there  had  been  only 
one  historically  sanctioned  tradition  —  the  time- 
honored  tradition  of  authority,  in  church  and 
state  alike.  In  the  new  France  there  was  this 
second  tradition  of  philanthropic  revolutionary 
aspiration.  Neither  the  one  France  nor  the  other 
could  ever  be  all  France  again.  The  decrepitude 
of  the  older  time  and  the  juvenility  of  the  new, 
each  unable  to  control,  must  each  be  reckoned 
with  in  any  durable  system  of  the  future.  For 
each  was  a  fact  beyond  controversial  denial,  just 
as  it  was  a  fact  that  the  Revolution  had  violently 
overthrown  the  traditional  monarchy,  and  that  a 
new  despotism  came,  with  renewed  vigor  of  now 
concentrated  physical  force,  to  repress  the  vaga- 
ries of  the  Revolution. 

Thus  the  true  problem  before  the  France  of  the 
,  Empire  was  to  devise  and  to  maintain  a  system 
4  comprehending  and  reconciling  the  discordant 
traditions  of  the  past, — the  elder  and  the  younger, 
the  royalist  and  the  revolutionary..  In  both 
there  had  been  useless,  miscJtiievous  features. 
Let  them  be  flung  away  and  forgotten.  In  both 
there  had  been  elements  of  enduring  strength, 
—  still    flushed   with   wholesome  vitality.     Let 


THE   REVOLUTION  319 

these  be  brought  together  and  combined  into  a 
strength  such  as  neither  could  ever  secure  with- 
out the  support  of  the  other.  There  was  some- 
thing not  to  be  gainsaid  in  the  purposes  of  those 
who  would  base  all  system  on  order  established 
by  divine  right;  there  was  something  not  to  be 
gainsaid,  as  well,  in  the  purposes  of  those  who 
would  base  all  system  on  some  other  order  neg- 
lecting divinity  and  recognizing  only  the  rights 
of  man.  The  reactionary  system  of  the  Empire 
was  less  transcendental  than  either,  but  at  once 
more  potent  and  of  colossal  good  sense.  For  it 
based  itself  rather  on  the  obviously  earthy  prin- 
ciple that  society  could  be  best  served  and  best 
advanced  by  a  system  which  should  keep  careers 
open  to  talent. 

Like  the  Revolution,  the  career  and  the  char- 
acter of  Napoleon  are  matters  too  vast  and  com- 
plicated for  valid  summary.  As  was  the  case 
with  the  Revolution,  meanwhile,  it  is  possible 
to  simplify  the  aspect  of  him  most  potent  in 
the  moulding  of  modern  France.  The  likeness 
of  him  to  Caesar  is  true,  impressive,  startling. 
Alone  in  the  history  of  Europe,  these  two  men 
successfully  confronted  political  and  civic  chaos 
with  the  assurance  of  confident  genius.  In  both 
this  genius  was  not  only  military  but  adminis- 
trative as  well;  in  both  it  was,  in  the  widest  sense. 


320      THE  FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

the  incarnate  genius  of  sovereignty.  The  imagi- 
nation of  posterity  remembers  both  most  vividly 
as  victorious  soldiers;  and  neither  could  have 
done  his  work  without  the  basis  of  his  miHtary 
achievement  to  build  on.  Yet  in  the  case  of 
both  what  is  truly  enduring  is  the  civic  structure 
founded  thereon.  The  genius  of  Caesar  gave  to 
the  world  the  term  empire.  He  found  the  word 
imperium  used  to  signify  the  power  of  a  mili- 
tary commander;  he  left  it  signifying  throughout 
the  ages  the  power  of  a  dominant  sovereignty, 
personal  or  national,  imposing  the  arts  of  peace 
upon  mankind,  merciful  to  the  conquered,  piti- 
less to  rebellious  spirits.  And  those  immortal 
verses  in  which  Anchises  foretells  the  grandeur 
of  Rome  might  have  been  written  as  truly  of 
the  imperial  purposes  of  Napoleon. 

His  civic  work  has  endured.  Partly  based  on 
the  strong  survivals  of  elder  system,  partly  aided 
by  the  usefully  destructive  work  of  the  Revolu- 
tion, partly  devised  with  the  infinite  perspicacity 
of  practical  genius,  it  not  only  gave  France  a  re- 
newed system  now  deeply  rooted  in  the  core  of 
French  custom,  but  it  altered  the  political  and 
the  material  aspect  of  the  whole  European  world. 
From  the  Code  Napoleon  to  the  broad  roadways 
of  Alpine  passes,  you  shall  find  enduring  traces 
of  him  everywhere,  outlasting  marble  or  bronze 


THE   REVOLUTION  821 

as  they  have  outlasted  the  echoes  of  his  cannon. 
On  the  other  hand,  all  the  power  of  his  unrivalled 
genius  for  government  did  not  achieve  the  end^ 
of  reuniting  the  dissentient  traditions  of  France. 
Rather  it  created,  to  rival  them,  a  third  tradition, 
at  one  with  neither  of  those  which  it  attempted 
to  reconcile,  to  comprehend,  to  fuse.  The 
effort  of  the  empire  may  be  compared  to  that 
which  psychic  physicians  make  nowadays  to 
flash  into  renewed  harmony  the  fragments  of 
some  dissociated  human  personality.  They  are 
not  beyond  the  range  of  hope;  but  there  must 
always  hover  about  them  a  confused  element  of 
bewildering  chance,  divine  if  it  smile,  diabolical 
if  it  frown.  In  the  case  of  French  nationality 
one  can  begin  to  see,  mistily  but  not  for  that  the 
less  confidently,  some  reason  why  the  colossal 
effort  of  Napoleon  was  doomed  to  failure.  This 
nationality,  disputative  and  quarrelsome  within 
itself  throughout  the  course  of  its  recorded 
history,  had  split  into  two  distinct  phases,  each 
animated  by  intense  ideal  devotion  to  a  system 
completely  at  variance  with  that  of  the  other. 
In  common  these  phases  had  the  virtue  of 
appealing  to  the  deepest  and  most  admirable 
phases  of  human  nature.  Both  were  surrounded 
by  all  manner  of  cynical  and  ignoble  moral  per- 
versities;   you  could  never  be  sure   of  finding 

21 


JS 


322       THE   FRANCE   OF   TODAY 

either  pure;  but  wherever  either  gleamed  pure 
you  would  surely  find  it  purified  by  trial  into 
such  inspiring  idealism  as  gives  you  pause  when 
you  would  hold  human  beings  in  contempt. 
The  nobler  spirit  of  disunited  France  was  broken 
in  two;  on  the  one  side  it  was  devoted  to  the 
divinely  sanctioned  system  of  royalist  tradition, 
on  the  other  to  the  philosophically  sanctioned 
system  of  revolutionary  philanthropy.  If  any 
note  could  resolve  these  jarring  chords  into  har- 
mony, it  must  be  a  note  spiritually  as  pure  as 
either.  And  just  this  dominant  tone  of  moral 
supremacy  seems  to  have  been  fatally  beyond 
the  range  of  the  Empire,    jy 

Its  power,  its  intelligence,  its  perception  of  what 
could  be  accomplished  and  of  what  should  be, 
seem  superhuman.  To  make  its  accomplish- 
ment secure  it  needed  the  support  not  only  of 
hard  heads  and  of  enthusiastic  hearts,  but  of  such 
righteous  enthusiasm  as  should  sanction  these 
with  the  ineffable  force  of  the  spirit.  It  must 
reconcile  to  itself  until  they  should  eagerly  work 
for  its  beneficence  the  nobly  divergent  idealists 
who  found  themselves  in  common  checked  by 
the  colossal  material  progress  of  its  development. 
This  proved  beyond  its  power.  It  was  com- 
pelled, in  great  degree,  to  rely  on  the  service  of 
time-servers,  while  the  servants  of  eternity  stood 


THE  REVOLUTION  323 

resolutely  apart  from  it,  just  as  they  stood  apart 
from  one  another.  It  gave  rise  to  its  own  new 
tradition,  of  an  earthly  system  stimulating  every 
man  to  win  for  himself  whatever  should  prove 
within  his  power;  but  it  soon  proved  unable  to 
resist  the  combined  forces  arrayed  against  it. 
Force  brought  jt  into  political  being,  and  kept  it 
thereTbrough  some  dozen  years,  altering  the  face 
and  the  history  of  all  Europe;  in  the  end  it 
succumbed  to  force,  just  as  the  Revolution  had 
succumbed  to  its  own,  and  the  elder  monarchy 
to  the  force  of  the  Revolution.  Traditional  sys- 
tem cannot  ignore  fact;  but  neither  can  any 
system  devised  by  human  ingenuity  ignore  the 
power  of  devotedly  cherished  ancestral  tradition. 
So  came  the  Restoration,  to  a  France  variously 
changed  from  that  over  which  Louis  XVI  had 
reigned  five- and- twenty  years  before.  It  was 
not  only  that  the  Revolution  and  the  Empire  had 
altered  the  face  of  the  country,  and  the  system 
of  its  administration,  and  the  details  of  its  law. 
More  deeply  still,  each  had  left  double  traces 
of  its  own.  Each  had  established,  in  fleeting 
power,  a  spiritual  tradition  distinct  from  that 
of  former  times,  yet  brought  from  the  region 
of  fancy  and  speculation  into  that  of  historical 
memory  by  the  fact  of  its  temporary  political 
dominance;    each    had    its    traditions    and    its 


324       THE   FRANCE   OF   TODAY 

heroes;  this  of  itself  would  have  been  enough 
to  alter  the  whole  situation.  But  above  and  be- 
yond this  soared  the  fact  that  both  the  Revolu- 
tion and  the  Empire  had  come  into  being  by 
force,  and  had  been  put  down  by  force,  in  turn. 
In  the  year  1815  there  was  not  in  the  world  a 
single  Frenchman  of  mature  years  who  could  not 
vividly  remember  at  least  two  violent  alterations 
in  the  form  of  sovereignty  demanding  his  alle- 
giance. Here  already  was  a  third.  Whatever 
the  abstract  sanction  of  the  new  sovereignty,  at 
least  a  generation  must  elapse  before  its  renewed 
power  could  find  itself  secured  by  the  sanction 
of  persistence. 

It  is  never  safe  to  put  too  much  trust  in  epi- 
gram. A  familiar  epigram  concerning  the  tem- 
per of  the  Restoration,  nevertheless,  contains 
truth  enough  to  be  worth  recalling.  When  the 
men  who  had  been  exiled  under  the  Republic  and 
the  Empire  came  back  to  France  and  to  power, 
and  when  the  turncoats  and  the  trimmers  —  the 
time-servers  and  the  honest  seekers  for  prac- 
tical expediency  —  renewed  their  professions  of 
loyalty  to  the  hereditary  crown,  some  one  said 
of  the  reinstated  possessors  of  sovereignty  that 
during  their  twenty  years  of  misfortune  they  had 
neither  learned  nor  forgotten  anything: — "/ci 
n^ont  rien  appris^  ni  rien  oubliey    To  some  de- 


THE   REVOLUTION  325 

gree,  this  pleasantry  seems  just.  In  the  nature  of 
things,  the  desire  of  restored  royalty  was  to  re- 
vive, so  far  as  might  be,  the  state  of  affairs  which 
had  existed  before  royalty  had  been  dethroned. 
As  we  have  seen  already,  the  fatal  fault  of  the  old 
'^gime^  at  least  in  temperament,  had  been  a  blind 
confidence  that  its  system  was  strong  enough 
to  admit  and  to  ignore  the  accumulating  force 
of  hostile  or  inconsistent  fact.  The  restored> 
monarcnists  had  not  found  experience  destruc- 
tive to  their  prejudices;  ratfier,  the  maintenance 
of  prejudice,  in  the  presence  of  misfortune,  had 
been  with  them  a  point  of  honor.  They  re- 
mained disposed  to  ignore  unwelcome  fact;  ^SSS 
among  the  unwelcome  facts  which  they  tried  to 
ignore,  or  to  suppress,  were  the  three  new  his- 
torical traditions  of  the  nation  over  which  they 
were  recalled  to  rule :  the  tradition  of  the  Repub- 
lic, the  tradition  of  the  Empire,  and  the  tradition 
that  the  actual  government  of  the  country  was 
a  comparative  novelty,  resting,  in  final  analysis, 
on  the  successful  exercise  of  physical  force.  In 
spite  of  their  reactionary  conservatism,  they 
retained  power  for  fifteen  years,  in  the  course 
of  which  the  legitimate  heir  of  Henry  IV  and 
Louis  XIV  succeeded  to  the  crown  as  regularly 
as  had  any  of  his  predecessors,  crowned  at 
Rheims   in  undisturbed  elder   time.      But   the 


826       THE   FRANCE   OF   TODAY 

combined  historic  forces  which  were  gathering 
against  them  finally  proved  irresistible.  The 
Revolution  of  1830  closed  the  history  of  legitimate 
monarchy  in  France. 

^  It  was  succeeded  by  a  new  attempt  to  found  a 
system  untested  by  historical  experience.     For 

■^eighteen  years  there  was  a  constitutional  mon- 
archy, resting  on  the  will  of  the  people,  and  tra- 

""ditionally  remembered  as  a  period  when  the 
bourgeoisie  was  called  upon  to  play  the  part  of 
aristocracy.  It  did  so,  with  eagerly  conscientious 
effort  and  somewhat  imperfect  grace.  Mean- 
while the  elder  tradition  of  the  Revolution, 
suppressed  since  the  establishment  of  the  Em- 
pire, was  gathering  renewed  force.  At  the  end 
of  eighteen  years  it  once  more  became  irresisti- 
ble; constitutional  monarchy  came  to  a  violent 
end,  just  as  legitimacy  had  come  before  it,  and 
empire,  and  the  republic,  and  the  old  regime  —  all 
in  less  than  sixty  years. 

Thereupon  history  recapitulated  itself,  with 
enough  variation  to  save  it  from  the  charge  of 
imitative  monotony.     First  came  four  years  of 

^republican  government,  which  soon  passed  into 
the  presidency  of  Louis  Napoleon,  much  as  the 
first  Republic  had  passed  into  the  consulship  of 
the  first  and  the  greatest  of  the  Bonapartes.  The 
Cowp  d'Eiat  and  1852  revived  the  name,  the  tra- 


THE  REVOLUTION  327 

ditions,  and  the  purposes  of  the  Empire.  For 
eighteen  years  Napoleon  III  remained  on  the 
throne,  striving  in  his  own  way  and  his  own  time 
to  accomplish  what  his  uncle  had  failed  to  accom- 
plish half  a  century  before.  It  is  pathetically 
characteristic  of  him  that  those  who  knew  him 
personally,  while  frank  in  acknowledging  his 
errors  and  weaknesses,  are  almost  at  one  in  their 
testimony  that  he  was  at  heart  an  honest  phil- 
anthropic idealist,  intent  on  being  the  regen- 
erator and  the  savior  of  society.  How  little  he 
succeeded  men  not  yet  beyond  middle  life  can 
still  remember  for  themselves.  The  royalist 
Jradition  and  the  republican  refused  to  nestle 
into  reconciliation  beneath  the  wings  of  the  im- 
perial eagle ;  so  did  the  somewhat  less  venerable 
tradition  of  the  Orleanists,  loyal  to  their  consti- 
tutional monarchy.  And,  even  more  than  the  first 
French  emperor,  the  second  proved  lacking  in 
such  moral  power  as  should  blend  the  rising 
discords  in  new  and  grander  harmony  than  had 
been  sounded  before.  The  course  of  history 
pursued  its  way  till  the  fatal  year  of  1870.  The 
Second  Empire  succumbed  to  such  force  as  had 
originated  it,  but  under  circumstances  more  ap- 
palling than  any  within  the  memory  of  living 
Frenchmen.  For  when  it  fell  the  country  was 
overwhelmed  by  armed  foreign  invasion,  such  as 


328       THE  FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

imperial  tradition  had  led  France  to  fancy  that 
only  French  power  could  inflict  on  the  territory 
of  a  neighbor. 

Almost  as  a  makeshift,  a  new  republic  came 
into  being,  —  itself,  like  all  the  governments  since 
the  fall  of  Louis  XVI,  the  offspring  of  an  armed 
revolution;  it  was  forced  to  reconquer  its  own 
capital  city  of  Paris  by  the  brute  force  of  civil 
conflict.  And  after  a  while  peace  was  made 
with  invading  Prussia,  strengthened  by  its  vic- 
torious warfare  into  the  new  dignity  of  imperial 
Germany.  And  the  last  monarch  of  the  French 
was  suffered  to  pass  his  few  remaining  days  in 
England,  where  Charles  X  and  Louis  Philippe 
had  gone  before  him.  It  is  said  at  the  British 
Museum  that,  as  long  as  he  had  the  strength 
left,  he  used  to  come,  alone  and  unrecognized 
by  the  public,  to  a  table  reserved  for  him  in  the 
old  reading-room,  and  there  turn  page  after  page 
of  the  newspapers  recording  the  story  of  his  fall; 
and  they  remember  that  he  was  apt  to  wear  a 
rusty  hat.  And  so  the  sovereignty  of  the  French 
came  once  more  into  the  hands  of  the  people. 
The  Third  Republic  has  escaped  revolution. 

Now,  to  remind  ourselves  of  what  this  his- 
torical experience  must  inevitably  have  meant  to 
the  national  temperament  of  France,  we  may  best 
consider  a  concrete  case.     By  chance,  the  life- 


THE   REVOLUTION  329 

time  of  an  eminent  American  man  of  letters 
affords  us  this  opportunity.  On  August  1st, 
1791,  there  was  born  in  Boston,  under  the  presi- 
dency of  George  Washington,  the  distinguished 
historian  of  Spanish  Literature,  Mr.  George 
Ticknor.  His  birthday  came  within  less  than  a 
month  of  the  time  when  the  Revolutionary  As- 
sembly of  France,  after  devising  a  constitution, 
passed  that  suicidal  ordinance  of  self-denial 
which  prevented  every  human  being  who  had 
helped  make  the  constitution  from  having  any- 
thing to  do  with  the  practical  management  of  it 
once  in  operation.  Mr.  Ticknor  remained  a  citi- 
zen of  Boston  all  his  life,  and  died  there,  on 
the  26th  of  January,  1871,  two  days  before  the 
armistice  between  France  and  Germany  was 
signed  under  the  walls  of  Paris.  Through  all 
his  eighty  years  he  had  lived  a  citizen  of  our 
American  republic,  founded,  as  we  have  seen, 
on  conservative  and  not  on  destructive  revolu- 
tion. He  had  seen  the  tradition  of  national  union 
strengthen  until  it  had  proved  powerful  enough 
to  survive  the  most  threatening  civil  war  in 
modern  history.  During  his  lifetime  seventeen 
presidents  of  the  United  States  had  regularly 
succeeded  to  the  chair  of  Washington;  he  died 
during  the  first  administration  of  General  Grant. 
And  there  was  not  a  moment  in  all  his  lifetime 


330       THE  FRANCE   OF   TODAY 

when,  however  disturbed  the  conditions  of  Amer- 
ican politics  might  have  seemed,  he  had  lived 
under  any  other  system  of  government  than  that 
under  which  he  came  into  the  world. 

Had  he  been  a  Frenchman,  on  the  other  hand, 
he  would  have  lived  under  six  distinct  systems 
of  sovereignty  —  the  Republic,  the  Empire,  the 
Restoration,  the  Constitutional  Monarchy  of 
Louis  Philippe,  the  Second  Republic,  and  the 
Second  Empire  —  each  founded  on  destructive 
revolution,  and  each  determined  to  impose  on  his 
country  a  new  system  forcibly  reducingjuaaon- 
venient  fact  to  practicable  order.  Each  in  turn 
would  have  succumbed  to  armed  revolutionary 
force.  And  none  of  the  six  would  have  sur- 
vived so  long  that  its  actual  beginning  and 
something  of  what  came  before  could  help  be- 
ing within  the  personal  memory  of  every  man 
under  its  sway  who  had  reached  the  age  of 
twenty-five  years. 

Temperamentally,  the  while,  each  of  these 
sovereignties  must  have  had  deep  significance  in 
the  history  of  his  country  and  lasting  effect  on  it 
as  well.  The  French,  as  we  have  seen,  cannot 
be  understood  until  we  sympathetically  acknowl- 
edge both  their  love  for  order  and  system  and 
the  intellectual  candor  with  which  they  recognize 
unwelcome  fact.     Every  one  of  these  six  systems 


THE   REVOLUTION  331 

of  government  may  be  regarded  as  an  effort  to 
invent  a  new  system  which  should  comprehend 
fact  as  fully  as  might  be,  and  then  should  impose 
itself  by  force  on  the  life  and  the  intelligence  of 
the  country.  Every  one  of  them  appealed  to  the 
honest  convictions  of  a  considerable  body  of 
Frenchmen,  so  sincere  that  they  remained  faith- 
ful to  it  even  in  defeat  and  in  despair.  Every 
one  of  them  consequently  gave  rise  to  traditions 
of  its  own,  devoutly  cherished,  and  —  like  all 
fervent  convictions  —  deserving  of  respect.  As 
has  been  the  case  with  religious  disputes  in 
France,  the  very  ardor  and  sincerity  of  these 
political  convictions  made  them  seem  to  their 
devotees  completely,  divinely  true;  and,  very 
clearly,  to  compromise  matters  of  truth  or  con- 
science is  unworthy  of  honest  men.  The  in- 
evitable result  of  the  Revolution  follows:  in 
politics,  as  in  religion,  the  French  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  have  been  more  than  intolerant 
of  one  another,  and  to  all  appearances  incapa- 
ble of  doing  one  another  the  justice  of  mutual 
understanding.  The  very  fact  that  in  spirit 
they  have  been  so  nearly  at  one  is  what  has  kept 
them  in  the  flesh  discordantly  apart. 

Among  the  gathering  political  traditions  of 
France,  the  three  on  which  we  have  chiefly 
touched  emerge  distinct.     The  first  is  that  of 


\ 


832       THE  FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

the  Royalists,  honest  believers  in  the  divine 
right  of  ancestral  kings  strong  in  authority 
derived  from  God  himself.  According  to  this 
creed,  the  personal  vagaries  of  the  sovereign 
can  no  more  impair  his  hereditary  rights  and 
privileges  than  the  errors  of  a  clergyman  can  im- 
pair the  virtues  of  his  sacred  office.  That  is  a 
matter  to  settle  not  with  men,  but  with  God. 
With  the  wisdom  or  with  the  historical  basis  for 
this  extreme  of  idealism  we  have  for  the  moment 
nothing  to  do.  Our  business  is  to  pay  it  the 
due  of  sympathetic  respect.  The  second  vital 
political  tradition  of  France  is  the  philanthropic 
creed  of  the  Revolution,  proclaiming  the  Rights 
of  Man,  and  insisting  on  the  untested,  imprac- 
ticable ideals  of  Liberty,  Equality,  and  Frater- 
nity. Until  we  understand  these  ideals  as  the 
nobler  revolutionary  spirit  conceived  them,  and 
not  as  the  baser  revolutionary  spirit  essayed  to 
exhibit  them  in  practice,  we  cannot  understand 
the  secret  of  their  undeniable  vitality.  The 
third  political  tradition  persistent  in  France  is 
that  of  the  Empire,  best  conceived  as  a  colossal 
effort  to  establish  an  authoritative  system  for 
keeping  careers  generously  open  to  talent.  The 
conception  at  the  root  of  Royalist  tradition  is 
that  human  nature  is  so  evil  as  to  demand  con- 
^  trol;   that  at  the  root  of  Revolutionary  tradition 


THE   REVOLUTION  333 

is  that  human  nature  is  so  good  as  to  merit 
freedom;  that  at  the  root  of  Imperial  tradition 
[is  that,  good  or  evil,  human  nature  should  have 
!its  deserts. 

It  is  hardly  excessive,  I  think,  to  indicate  these 
ideals  thus  simply.  It  would  be  the  height  of 
folly,  however,  to  pretend  that  any  such  state- 
ment is  comprehensive.  If  we  went  no  farther, 
indeed,  the  men  most  conscientiously  devoted  to 
any  one  of  them  might  willingly  give  no  small 
degree  of  assent  to  the  others.  And  nothing  is 
more  clear,  as  a  matter  of  plain  fact,  than  that 
Royalists,  Revolutionists,  and  Imperialists  in 
France  have  not  only  been  in  mortal  opposition 
to  one  another,  but  that,  with  the  enthusiastic 
fervor  of  French  character,  they  have  honestly 
held  one  another  in  deep  spiritual  abhorrence. 
Men  who  believe  themselves  possessors  of  light 
cannot  help  believing  those  who  differ  from 
them  to  be  ministers  of  darkness.  Whoever 
would  understand  the  effect  of  the  Revolution 
on  French  temperament  must  grasp  the  truth 
that  all  three  of  these  discordant  ideals  have 
inspired,  and  to  some  degree  inspire  still,  enthu- 
siastic and  conscientious  devotees.  And  this 
complexity  of  ideals  is  not  the  only  historical 
result  of  the  Revolution.  An  equally  profound 
one  springs  from  the  fact  that  every  government 


334       THE  FRANCE   OF   TODAY 

which  living  Frenchmen  have  been  able  to  re- 
member —  or  any  Frenchman  who  came  into  the 
world  after  1790  —  has  been  a  government  based 
on  armed  force.  The  form  of  sovereignty  at  any 
given  time  has  accordingly  presented  itself  to  the 
candid  minds  of  the  French  not  so  much  in  the 
character  of  a  national  establishment  as  in  that  of 
a  partisan  tyranny.  The  devoted  effort  of  the 
Revolution  to  supplant  an  old  system  by  a  newer 
and  a  truer  has  led  to  incessant  imitation,  until 
any  system,  as  formulated  on  the  surface  of  the 
state,  has  come  to  seem  experimental,  doctri- 
narian, transitory,  insecure. 

And  yet,  all  the  while,  the  moments  when  any- 
one who  has  known  France  has  believed  it  in 
danger  of  anarchical  paralysis,  have  been  few 
and  far  between.  At  least  since  the  renewal  of 
systematic  order  under  the  supreme  guidance  of 
the  first  Napoleon,  the  legal  and  the  social  sys- 
tem of  the  country  — itiie  true  life  of  the  nation 
—  has  been  far  less  disturbed  than  people  dis- 
tracted by  the  superficial  instability  of  ruling 
systems  have  been  apt  to  suppose.  Under  the 
Reign  of  Terror  itself,  they  say,  the  theatres  and 
the  museums  were  regularly  open ;  and  you  could 
get  as  good  things  to  eat  and  drink  as  ever,  in 
the  familiar  places  where  they  served  you  better 
than  anywhere  else  in  the  world.     The  only  dif- 


THE   REVOLUTION  335 

ference  was  that  the  old  faces  which  used  to  make 
those  places  gay  were  no  longer  gladdening  them ; 
and  a  few  of  the  faces  were  no  longer  gladdening 
the  sunshine  anywhere.     So  it  has  been  through- 
out.    Not  many  years  ago,  some  character  in  a 
novel  or  a  play  lamented  the  havoc  wrought  in 
French  society  by  the  Revolution.     He  was  an- 
swered in  an  epigram  which  has  lingered  in  my 
memory.    "La  Revolution  nexiste  que  pour  les 
sotSy^  it  ran  —  "Anyone  who  is  not  a  fool  can 
see  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as  the  Revolu- 
tion."     Far    from    comprehensively    true,   this 
flippant  piece  of  trivial  wit.    The  scars  of  the 
Revolution  are  still  seamed  over  the  whole  face 
of  France;  and  the  memories  of  it,  and  of  what 
ensued,  rend  France  asunder  to  this  day.     But 
all  the  while  men  and  women  have  lived  and 
died,  and  loved  and  lost  and  won,  just  as  they 
lived  and  died  and  loved  before,  and  as  they  shall 
live  and  love  and  die  so  long  as  humanity  stays 
human.     No  system  ever  devised  can  make  men 
other  than  men ;  nor  can  any  ever  make  their  as- 
pirations, however  noble,  completely  consonant. 
A  vivid  example  of  what  every-day  existence 
has  remained  in  France  came  to  my  notice  a 
little  while  ago.     In  the  summer  of  1906  the 
newspapers  announced  that  a  man  had  just  died 
in  Paris  at  the  age  of  almost  a  hundred  years. 


336       THE   FRANCE   OF   TODAY 

This  of  itself  might  have  deserved  passing  notice; 
the  peculiarity  of  his  case  deserves  more.  At  some 
time  before  1830,  it  appears,  this  worthy  person, 
who  had  held  some  small  position  in  the  domestic 
service  of  King  Charles  X,  had  been  granted  by 
that  sovereign  a  modest  pension,  befitting  his 
station  in  life.  The  Revolution  of  1830  had  oc- 
curred, and  that  of  1848;  the  Cowp  d'JI^tat,  too, 
and  the  fall  of  the  Second  Empire.  Through 
all  these  disturbances  the  pensioner  of  the  last 
Legitimist  king  had  regularly  presented  himself 
on  the  days  when  his  pension  was  due  and  had 
regularly  received  it,  for  more  than  seventy-five 
years.  The  nominal  government  of  France  had 
changed  over  and  over  again;  but  not  its  methods 
of  conducting  business,  or  its  habit  of  meeting 
even  its  smallest  obligations.  For  this  anec- 
dote, to  be  sure,  I  have  no  better  authority  than 
newspapers.  It  may  be  mistaken,  or  even  a 
mere  invention.  In  spirit,  nevertheless,  it  is 
deeply  true.  No  changes  in  government  or  in 
■^avowed  ideals  and  aspirations  have  affected  the 
unbroken  national  persistency  of  France. 

If  they  had,  France  could  not  be  at  this  mo- 
ment what  any  observer,  however  casual,  must 
recognize  it  to  be.  The  disaster  of  1870  might 
well  have  been  thought  crushing;  yet,  in  a  very 
few  years,  it  was  only  a  matter  of  history,  like  the 


THE  REVOLUTION  337 

Revolution  of  July,  or  the  Reign  of  Terror,  or 
the  Republican  Calendar.  The  facts  of  French 
life,  as  we  have  touched  on  them  together  —  re- 
vealing everywhere  such  persistent,  serious,  and 
cheerful  devotion  to  system  in  private  affairs  — 
would  testify  to  a  state  of  existence  as  far  from 
anarchical  as  any  in  the  world.  Yet,  all  the 
while,  this  France  of  to-day,  this  France  of  the 
Third  Republic,  is  perforce  a  France  animated 
not  by  a  single  great  national  tradition,  but  by 
three  discordant  ones,  each  with  its  heroes  and 
its  devotees.  It  has  learned  from  its  century  of 
recurrent  revolutions  the  mischievous  lesson  that 
no  form  of  government  may  prudently  believe 
itself  permanently  stable.  What  now  concerns 
us  is  the  question  of  how  contemporary  France 
confronts  its  problems  and  its  duties. 


VIII 

THE   REPUBLIC   AND    DEMOCRACY 

WHEN  we  compare  the  present  system 
of  government  in  France  with  the 
various  others  which  have  flourished 
and  fallen  since  the  Revolution  overthrew  the  tra- 
ditional monarchy,  at  least  two  circumstances 
^  distinguish  it  from  all  the  rest.  The  first  is  that 
in  origin  it  was  not  deliberate.  Foreign  invasion 
had  resulted  in  the  fall  of  the  Empire;  a  pro- 
sional  government  was  a  matter  of  necessity; 
and  from  this  provisional  government  the  repub- 
lican system  still  in  existence  was  presently  de- 
veloped, by  methods  of  debate  rather  than  of 
violence.  Though,  beyond  dispute,  the  repub- 
lic had  intense  partisans,  theirjco^nyi^ctions  would 
hardly  have  established  it  but  for  the  solid  fact 
that  no  other  proposed  plan  of  government,  roy- 
alist or  imperial,  proved  for  the  moment  prac- 
ticable; something  had  to  be  done,  and  this 
seemed,  on  the  whole,  the  only  thing  to  do.  Ex- 
ceptional though  the  tragic  conditions  of  its  be- 
ginning were,  there  is,  accordingly,  a  case  for 


THE   REPUBLIC  339 

those  who  should  maintain,   with  what  seems 

paradox,  that  the  present  Republic  is  the  most 

1  normal  form  of  French  government  since  the  old 

j  regime.     For  it  is  the  only  one  forced  upon  the 

'  country  by  the  hard  logic  of  necessity.     All  the 


/^ 


others  were  Teased  on  the  revolutionary  precedent 
of  supplanting  the  regularly  constituted  authori- 
ties by  armed  force  —  a  process  which,  of  course, 
resulted  in  making  the  suppressed  parties  rev- 
olutionists themselves,  duly  waiting  their  turn. 
The  republic,  no  doubt,  has  as  much  doctrine 
of  its  own  as  either  empire  or  royalty  —  whether 
Orleanist  or  Legitimist;  but  this  doctrine  is  rather 
the  defence  of  its  power  than  the  basis. 

Even  if  this  were  the  only  circumstance  to  dis- 
tinguish it  from  the  forms  of  government  to 
whose  authority  it  has  succeeded,  it  would  stand 
conspicuously  alone.  A  second  circumstance 
makes  its  position  doubly  clear.  Whether  the 
unrecognized  normality  of  its  origin  has  had 
anything  to  do  with  its  endurance  or  not  —  the 
question  might  well  prove  debatable  —  the  fact 
of  its  endurance  is  now  settled.  Between  the 
outbreak  of  the  Revolution  and  the  fall  of  the 
Second  Empire  no  French  sovereignty  had  main- 
tained itself  for  more  than  eighteen  consecutive 
years.  There  had  consequently  never  been  a 
period  when  everyone  in  the  country  who  had 


340       THE   FRANCE   OF   TODAY 

t 

attained  the  age  of  twenty-five  could  not  person- 
ally remember  both  a  widely  different  political 
system  from  that  of  the  moment  and  also  the 
revolutionary  disturbances  by  means  of  which 
the  government  actually  in  power  had  come  into 
existence.  During  the  first  years  of  the  Third 
Republic  it  must  have  seemed  as  palpable  a  po- 
litical novelty  as  almost  any  other  sovereignty 
within  living  memory.  By  the  year  1888,  how- 
ever, it  had  already  survived  as  long  as  either  the 
reign  of  Louis  Philippe  or  the  Second  Empire, 
its  two  most  durable  predecessors;  and  by  1906 
the  interval  since  1888  had  become  as  long  as 
that  between  1888  and  1870.  For  thirty- six  years 
the  actual  form  of  government  in  France  had 
already  remained  unbroken  by  revolution;  and 
there  was  not  a  living  Frenchman  under  the 
age  of  forty,  whatever  his  political  convictions, 
who  could  personally  remember  any  other  system 
than  that  under  which  the  French  are  contentedly 
or  restlessly  living  at  this  moment.  .^AlmQst^  in- 
sensibly the  present  Republic  of  France  is  grow- 
ling to  have  such  sanction  as  must  come  to  any 
institutions  from  time  wherein  the  memory  of  man 
j  runneth  not  to  the  contrary. 

This  of  itself  would  give  the  Third  Republic 
(  a  chance  of  stability  not  enjoyed  by  any  other 
I  French  system  of  the  nineteenth  century.     When 


THE  REPUBLIC  341 

governments,  as  when  children,  survive  the  dan- 
gers of  infantile  disease,  their  prospects  of  sur- 
vival to  a  hale  old  age  are  indefinitely  strength- 
ened. The  important  question  becomes  whether 
anything  seems  to  be  organically  the  matter  with 
them.  In  the  case  of  a  government  such  ques- 
tions are  extremely  complicated.  They  involve 
all  manner  of  statistics,  for  one  thing;  for  an- 
other, they  are  always  confused  by  the  methods 
of  practice  common  among  political  experts  and 
political  quacks  alike.  Politicians,  particularly 
when  they  have  brewed  panaceas  of  their  own, 
are  everywhere  eager  to  prove  that  the  state  needs 
their  medicine.  Their  habitual  eloquence,  ac- 
cordingly, resembles  that  of  the  travelling  vender 
of  pills  who  declared  that  the  great  art  of  his  pro- 
fession was  not  the  selling  of  his  remedies,  but 
knowing  how  you  could  talk  so  as  to  make  a 
crowd  feel  sick.  In  such  quandary,  an  unpro- 
fessional listener,  affected  with  qualms,  has  no 
resource  but  to  look  at  the  crowd  for  himself. 
Whatever  its  momentary  misgivings,  there  is  a 
strong  probability  that,  if  it  appears  healthy,  it 
is  really  in  sound  condition. 

If  any  traveller  in  France  thus  considers  the 
aspect  of  the  country  in  the  thirty- seventh  year 
of  the  Third  Republic,  he  can  hardly  avoid  the 
impression  that  nothing  could  appear  more  pros« 


342       THE   FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

perous.  'Other  countries,  to  be  sure,  may  look 
more  aggressively  enterprising;  you  will  per- 
haps see  elsewhere  more  obtrusive  novelties  of 
trade  and  manufacture,  or  notice  more  bustle; 
but  you  will  nowhere  discover  more  constant 
evidence  of  solid  and  substantial  welfare.,  From 
Flanders  and  Normandy  to  Provence,  wherever 
you  go,  —  from  the  Atlantic  to  the  Alps,  too,  — 
you  will  find  less  evidence  of  poverty,  of  idle-^ 
ness,  of  misery,  than  will  force  itself  on  your 
attention  almost  anywhere  else  in  the  world. 
To  rely  too  strongly  on  such  an  impression  as 
this  may  be  imprudent;  yet  one  cannot  ration- 
ally neglect  it.  Travellers'  tales  have  their  value 
as  well  as  their  limitations;  and  a  pervasive  na- 
tional prosperity,  a  sound  national  virtue,  is  a 
fact  as  incontrovertible  as  any  assertion  of  sta- 
tistics or  philosophy.  What  is  more,  there  are 
moods  in  which  you  are  disposed  to  think  it 
more  significant  than  the  best  of  them.  No  gov- 
ernment, to  be  sure,  could  produce  such  prosper- 
ity as  must  impress  travellers  throughout  France, 
unless  the  people  under  its  control  were  vigorous, 
intelligent,  and  thrifty;  but  no  vigor  or  intelli- 
gence or  thrift  on  the  part  of  a  people  could 
produce  it  unless  the  government  were,  on  the 
whole,  salutary.  Whatever  statistics  or  philoso- 
phy may  tell  you,  the  general  condition  of  France 


THE   REPUBLIC  343 

at  the  present  day  is  evidence  enough  for  any 
traveller  that  throughout  the  memory  of  all  men 
under  forty  years  of  age  the  government  has 
been  not  only  unbroken,  but  efficient  —  that  it 
has  really  worked  for  the  public  good. 

Whether  it  has  worked  any  better  than  some 
other  political  system  might  have  done,  or  even 
so  well  as  might  have  been  the  case  with  some 
other,  is  evidently  another  question.  In  other 
countries,  or  at  other  epochs,  this  question 
might  have  been  merely  academic.  In  France, 
throughout  the  existence  of  the  Third  Republic, 
it  has  often  seemed  one  of  practical  politics.  As 
we  have  already  reminded  ourselves,  the  present 
constitution  of  France,  though  it  has  had  the  good 
fortune  to  survive  beyond  the  limit  of  average 
human  memory,  began  almost  as  a  makeshift 
during  a  period  of  unprecedented  national  dis- 
aster, threatening  anarchical  revolution.  At  the 
moment,  almost  all  Frenchmen  were  willing  to 
submit  themselves  to  it  provisionally.  For  many 
of  them,  however,  it  was,  at  best,  only  a  prudent 
temporary  alternative  for  some  other  form  of  gov- 
ernment in  their  opinion  superior.  The  Em- 
pire had  fallen,  for  the  moment;  but  the  spirit  of 
the  imperialists  was  not  yet  extinct.  And,  as 
everyone  knows,  the  whole  force  of  the  Empire, 
even  when  it  seemed  most  dominant,  had  in  no 


S44       THE   FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

wise  impaired  the  spirit  of  devoted  royalists  — 
Legitimist  or  Orleanist  —  any  more  than  it 
had  smothered  that  of  enthusiastic  repubhcans. 
What  is  more,  everybody  in  the  whole  world 
could  vividly  remember  the  reign  of  Napoleon 
III;  men  still  in  the  full  vigor  of  middle  life 
could  remember  that  of  Louis  Philippe;  and  it 
was  only  forty  years  since  Louis  Philippe  had 
dethroned  Charles  X  —  little  longer  than  it  is 
now  since  Napoleon  III  surrendered  at  Sedan. 
Evidently,  the  present  Republic  began  its  career 
under  great  disadvantages.  Throughout  France 
there  were  admirably  honest  Frenchmen  who 
ardently  believed  that  the  country  could  not 
fully  prosper  until  it  returned  to  one  or  another 
of  the  three  rival  systems. 

Each  of  the  three,  too,  had  a  personally  respec- 
table pretender  to  the  throne.  Had  any  of  these 
aspirants  to  hereditary  sovereignty  possessed  a 
dominantly  commanding  personality,  the  course 
of  history  might  have  taken  another  turn  than 
we  have  been  considering  together.  In  this  re- 
spect fortune  favored  the  Republic.  Without 
venturing  to  criticise  the  character  of  any  of  the 
three,  we  can  hardly  fail  to  agree  that  none  of 
them  was  graced  with  such  power  as  excites 
popular  enthusiasm.  Even  from  the  beginning, 
accordingly,  the  Republic  was  in  less  danger  than 


THE   REPUBLIC  345 

might  otherwise  have  been  the  case  of  succumb- 
ing to  some  freshly  revolutionary  assertion  of 
royalist  or  imperialist  tradition.  And  the  course 
of  events  during  the  past  thirty- six  years  has  gone 
far  to  avert  what  danger  of  such  fate  may  have 
originally  existed.  The  direct  line  of  Napo- 
leon III  is  extinct ;  so  is  that  of  Charles  X.  The 
Orleanist  prince  who  has  succeeded  to  the  Legiti- 
mist claim  is  not  even  descended,  in  male  line, 
from  Louis  XIV;  and  the  present  heir  of  the 
Bonapartes  must  go  back  to  the  Corsican  lawyer 
of  the  eighteenth  century  to  show  his  kinship  to 
either  of  the  French  emperors.  Neither  of  these 
gentlemen,  furthermore,  is  any  more  fortunate 
than  the  pretender  whose  claims  he  inherits, 
in  the  matter  of  personal  qualities  irresistible  to 
public  imagination.  It  may  seem  needless  to 
repeat  that  nothing  is  further  from  my  purpose 
than  to  make  any  comment  whatever  on  their 
private  characters,  which  I  am  led  to  believe  de- 
serving of  universal  esteem.  The  plain  truth  is 
that  neither  of  them,  for  all  his  honorable  virtues, 
has  the  gift  of  such  distinction  as  should  make 
people  in  general  quite  sure  of  just  who  he  is.  A 
pretender  whom  you  have  to  verify  in  the  "Al- 
manach  de  Gotha  "  is  no  longer  a  serious  menace 
—  unless,  in  time  to  come,  he  remove  himself 
from  those  impressive  pages  into  the  sunshine 


346       THE   FRANCE   OF   TODAY 

and  shadow  of  open  air.  At  this  moment,  ac- 
cordingly, the  claims  of  rival  traditions  to  the 
sovereignty  of  France  seem  less  threatening  to 
established  order  than  at  any  previous  time  since 
1815. 

For  all  this,  these  rival  traditions  persist  to  the 
present  day;  and  they  have  sometimes  been  real 
dangers  to  the  Republic.  Even  though  they  no 
longer  present  themselves  in  so  serious  a  light, 
the  effect  of  them  is  evident  throughout  France. 
For  years  they  were  well  within  the  range  of 
practical  politics.  So  long  as  they  remained 
there,  they  could  not  help  emphasizing  the  fact 
that,  as  a  form  of  government,  the  Republic  is 
based  on  only  one  aspect  of  French  tradition  — 

.-^-on  the  tradition  of  the  Revolution,  so  passion-^ 
ately  contradictory  of  royalist  and  of  imperial 
tradition  alike.     In  many  ways  the  Republic  has 

'  done  nothing  to  mitigate  this  emphasis;  rather 
it  has  gloried  in  the  tradition  peculiar  to  itself. 
Had  it  done  otherwise,  it  might  have  been  more 
prudent,  but  it  certainly  would  have  been  less 
French.  There  is  something  pleasantly  typical 
in  the  device  on  the  reverse  of  its  gold  coinage. 
Instead  of  the  imperial  eagle,  we  have  the  Gallic 
cock.  To  all  appearance,  this  spirited  bird  is 
in  the  act  of  crowing  —  for  the  purpose,  one 
opines,  of  reminding  us  that  he  is  on  top  of  the 


THE   REPUBLIC  347 

heap;  which  is  very  delightful  for  the  cock,  but 
not  conciliatory  to  the  temper  of  less  fortunate 
fowls.  The  same  spirit  shows  itself  more  se- 
dately in  republican  inscriptions  now  so  pro- 
fusely decorating  the  public  buildings  of  France. 
Wherever  you  go,  the  words  **  Liberty,  Equality, 
Fraternity,''  stare  you  in  the  face,  never  suffer- 
ing yoii  to  forget  that  the  watchwords  of  the 
Revolution  are  once  more  those  of  the  govern- 
ment in  full  possession  of  power.  Another  vivid 
example  of  the  spirit  in  question  happens  to  rise 
straight  to  the  surface  of  my  memory.  Among 
the  masterpieces  of  Renaissance  architecture  in 
France  is  the  Chateau  of  St.  Germain,  a  great 
part  of  which  was  erected  in  the  reign  of  King 
Francis  I.  It  was  accordingly  decorated,  like 
many  other  of  his  buildings,  with  his  personal 
device,  the  salamander,  and  with  the  initial  "F" 
of  his  royal  name.  In  the  course  of  time  it  fell 
out  of  repair,  and  furthermore  was  disfigured  by 
various  additions  and  surrounded  by  other  build- 
ings, of  neither  dignity  nor  importance.  Within 
a  few  years  the  government  has  undertaken  to 
restore  it,  as  an  historical  monument.  The  res- 
toration, executed  with  intelligence  and  skill,  is 
now  so,  far  advanced  that  in  certain  places  it 
has  reached  the  stage  of  finishing  touches,  of 
ornamental  detail.     Here  the  salamander  writhes 


348       THE  FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

as  splendidly  as  ever;  and  here,  as  in  the  elder 
time,  admirably  designed  initials  alternate  with 
him.  But  the  new  initials  of  the  restored  palace 
are  not  those  of  King  Francis.  Instead  of  "F" 
you  perceive  "R.  F."  everywhere.  The  Repub- 
lic does  not  show  itself  quite  confident  enough 
to  admit  the  past.  Thus,  by  its  own  act,  it  re- 
veals what  still  seems  true.  Even  to  this  day 
it  presents  itself,  both  to  its  partisans  and  to 
its  opponents,  not  so  much  in  the  light  of  an 
established  national  government  as  in  that  of 
a  temporarily  dominant  political  pariv. 

In  spite  of  this,  we  should  be  much  mistaken 
if  we  supposed  its  career  exactly  like  that  of  some 
party  which  should  have  proved  able  to  maintain 
itself  indefinitely  in  power  under  a  system  like 
our  own.  In  the  course  of  its  career,  it  has  come, 
at  different  times,  under  the  control  of  very  dif- 
ferent kinds  of  people.  There  have  been  mo- 
1  ments  in  its  existence  when  it  has  so  nearly 
K4)assed  into  the  hands  of  sympathizers  with  royal- 
I  ist  tradition  that  the  advent  of  a  king  seemed  close 
at  hand ;  radical  though  its  revolutionary  devices 
must  always  have  appeared,  it  has  occasionally 
found  itself  under  the  management  of  people 
whose  impulses  were  certainly  conservative,  if 
not  reactionary.  In  other  words,  if  we  are  dis- 
posed to  liken  the  Republic  to  a  dominant  party. 


THE   REPUBLIC  349 

as  distinguished  from  a  system  of  government 
established  by  full  consent  of  the  governed,  we 
must  never  suffer  ourselves  to  forget  that  it  re- 
sembles a  party  composed  of  discordant  factions 
rather  than  one  vigorously  united  by  general 
devotion  to  a  common  purpose. 

Viewing  the  matter  in  this  light,  one  would  nat- 
urally suppose  that  when  any  faction  found  itself 
dominant  it  would  behave,  as  a  matter  of  obvious 
policy,  in  a  conciliatory  manner.  Precisely  this 
form  of  amenity  seems  one  of  the  few  which  the 
French  are  impulsively  unable  to  practise.  Wher- 
ever you  go  in  France  you  find  aggressive  asser- 
tions on  the  part  of  every  faction  or  party  ever  in 
control  of  affairs  that  it  has  had  its  way,  if  only  for 
a  while.  The  Gallic  cock  of  the  Republic  struts 
crowing  on  coins  which  are  still  popularly  de- 
scribed as  napoleons ;  the  cockerels  which  France 
has  hatched  for  him  show  themselves  of  the  pure 
breed. 

An  obvious  example  of  this  tendency  must  in- 
stantly attract  the  notice  of  any  visitor  to  Paris 
at  the  present  day.  The  capital  city  of  the  Re- 
public is,  in  most  respects,  very  like  the  capital 
of  the  Second  Empire.  Viewed  from  any  dis- 
tance or  from  any  height,  however,  it  proves  to 
be  dominated  by  two  lofty  structures  erected 
under  the  present  system  of  government.     And 


850       THE   FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

these  rise  so  conspicuously  above  all  the  rest  of 
Paris  that  they  inevitably  catch  the  eye,  and 
linger  in  memory  as  the  most  salient  features  of 
the  view.  One  is  the  Eiffel  Tower,  a  most  re- 
markable achievement  of  construction  in  riveted 
steel.  Its  loftiness  and  the  structural  accuracy  of 
its  lines  give  it  something  more  like  dignity  and 
beauty  than  you  would  have  supposed  possible. 
At  the  same  time  this  network  of  metal  pushed 
skyward  has  no  aspect  of  permanence.  It  seems 
only  a  colossal  piece  of  eccentric  ingenuity,  de- 
vised for  the  purpose  of  amusing  the  crowds  who 
flocked  from  everywhere  to  one  of  the  interna- 
tional expositions.  It  has  outlasted  its  advertis- 
ing purpose;  and,  as  it  still  attracts  and  amuses 
a  good  many  travellers  every  year,  it  stands  there 
still,  a  huge  plaything.  But  it  does  not  look  as 
if  it  need  stand  there  very  long.  When  people 
grow  tired  of  playing  with  it,  you  fancy,  it  will 
be  taken  down  and  sold  for  old  metal.  And 
everybody  will  be  happy  —  including  those  sen- 
sitive persons  whose  artistic  susceptibilities  are 
wounded  whenever  they  look  at  the  monster.  It 
has  never  done  any  harm  to  anybody  else;  it  is 
said  to  have  proved  a  lucrative  investment. 

The  other  structure  which  now  surmounts 
Paris  is  in  all  respects  dissimilar  —  except  that 
there  might  be  a  case  for  those  who  should 


THE  REPUBLIC  351 

maintain  it  no  more  beautiful.  The  highest  hill 
within  the  limits  of  the  city  —  Montmartre  —  is 
at  present  crowned  not  with  the  houses  and  the 
windmill  which  distinguished  it  in  former  times, 
but  with  a  huge  domed  edifice,  unmistakable  in  its 
ecclesiastical  character,  yet  so  obviously  modern 
in  its  lines  that  you  can  perceive  it  instantly  to  be 
a  brand-new  monument  of  the  wealth  and  the 
power  resident  in  the  Church  a  few  years  ago. 
This  sumptuous  sanctuary,  you  presently  dis- 
cover, is  the  new  Church  of  the  Sacred  Heart; 
specially  consecrated  to  an  extremely  French 
species  of  mystic  devotion.  ^'  It  symbolizes  that 
aspBCt  of  the  Church  which  is  most  intensely 
enthusiastic,  and  least  concerned  with  the  affairs 
of  this  world.  It  stands  not  for  the  inexhaustible 
charity  of  Christianity,  forever  bringing  aid  and 
comfort  to  the  poor  and  unfortunate,  earnestly 
endeavoring  to  mitigate  the  ills  of  life.  It  stands 
rather  for  such  holy  ecstasies  as  those  who  doubt 
or  dislike  the  Church  conceive  to  be  little  better 
than  drunkenness  of  the  spirit.  It  is  immensely 
expensive;  millions  on  millions  of  devout  francs 
have  been  consecrated  to  it  by  the  faithful.  Every 
centime  of  them  has  gone  into  its  masonry  and  its 
decorations,  to  remain  fixed  there  forever.  For 
its  foundation  and  its  walls  are  as  solid  as  human 
skill  can  make  them.     The  church  has  been  built 


352       THE   FRANCE   OF   TODAY 

on  Montmartre  to  dominate  Paris  as  long  as 
Paris  shall  stay  on  earth  to  be  dominated. 
And,  for  fear  that  it  might  sometimes  escape  the 
notice  of  Parisians,  the  country-folk  of  Savoy 
have  given  their  savings  to  buy  for  it  the  biggest 
bell  to  be  bought  for  money.  They  promise 
you,  I  believe,  that  when  the  "Savoyard"  is 
sounded,  you  shall  hear  the  note  of  it  in  every 
cranny  of  the  capital  city  of  the  French  Republic. 
All  of  which  is  admirable  in  its  way.  One 
cannot  too  deeply  respect  the  self-sacrificing  de- 
votion with  which  the  Catholics  of  France  have 
thus  testified  to  the  living  persistency  of  their 
faith.  If  any  splendor  of  enshrinement  shall 
really  contribute  ''ad  majorem  JDei  gloriam/'  no 
man  who  can  sympathize  with  the  longings  of  the 
I  human  soul  would  ever  grudge  the  Church  a  bit 
of  it.  i^lBut  you  cannot  be  long  in  Paris  without 
learning  that  this  colossal  new  place  of  worship 
Jhas  another  aspect  than  this  primary  one  of  tes- 
itifying  to  the  depth  of  orthodox  devotion  still 
persistent  among  the  French.  As  is  well  known, 
a  great  number  of  honest  republicans  have  be- 
lieved, throughout  the  nineteenth  century,  that 
the  Christian  religion,  particularly  in  its  purely 
devotional  aspects,  is  a  relentless  obstacle  to 
human  progress.  To  men  of  this  disposition  the 
most  unwelcome  of  a,ll  French  cults  is  the  ado- 

I 


\ 


THE  REPUBLIC  353 

ration  of  the  Sacred  Heart  —  for  the  reason  that 
it  carries  people  farthest  in  sympathy  from  the 
things  of  this  world,  directing  their  attention 
rather  to  mystical  ecstasy  in  regions  which  they 
believe  heavenly.  To  unbelievers,  in  short,  this 
worship  stands  for  the  acme  of  superstition.  It 
is  therefore  the  form  of  devotion  most  certain 
to  excite  their  antagonism. 

When  the  Republic  was  for  a  while  in  reac- 
tionary hands,  and  the  men  temporarily  in 
power  were  disposed  rather  to  sympathize  with 
the  Church  than  to  oppose  it,  you  might  ac- 
cordingly have  expected  them,  as  prudent  states- 
men, to  have  taken  this  phase  of  opposition  into 
consideration.  You  might  have  expected  the 
Church  itself  to  have  displayed  a  similar  spirit. 
There  are  aspects  enough  and  to  spare  in  which 
Catholic  Christianity  is  obviously  beneficent. 
These,  you  might  have  thought,  would  be  chosen 
for  emphasis  by  both  its  clergy  and  its  laity. 
The  last  thing  which  you  could  have  supposed 
astute  men  to  favor  would  have  been  mani- 
festations of  their  more  exasperating  points  of 
difference  from  fellow  citizens  who  had  the  mis- 
fortune to  hold  them  in  distrust.  Yet  with 
free  choice  of  conduct,  they  preferred  the  most 
extreme  imaginable  manifestation  of  such  dif- 
ference.    Churchmen  eagerly  proposed  this  co- 


23 


354       THE  FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

lossal  monument  of  the  Sacred  Heart;  the 
government  of  the  moment  consented  to  it. 
And  there  it  stands  to-day,  a  monument  of 
several  other  facts  as  well.  It  reminds  every- 
body that  for  a  while  the  clerical  spirit  was 
dominant  in  the  Third  Republic;  it  reminds 
everybody  that  the  moment  it  became  so,  it 
proceeded  to  celebrate  its  dominance  in  the 
most  obtrusive  and  self-glorifying  way  —  and 
also  in  the  hardest  to  obliterate  when  politics 
should  take  another  turn.  It  reminds  everybody 
that  this  other  turn  of  politics  has  ensued.  It 
reminds  all  who  enthusiastically  delight  in  the 
doctrines  it  stands  for  that  these  are  no  longer  in 
power.  It  reminds  everybody  who  distrusts  or 
hates  them  that,  if  they  once  get  into  power 
again,  their  enemies  need  look  for  little  mercy 
at  their  hands.  At  best,  no  matter  what  may 
have  been  the  actual  motives  of  its  builders,  it 
reminds  the  whole  world  that  they  were  willing 
to  set  up,  the  moment  they  could  do  so,  a  con- 
stant and  aggressive  cause  of  provocation  to 
any  compatriots  not  in  sympathy  with  the  phase 
of  national  temper  which  it  so  sumptuously 
represents. 

Even  as  yet,  I  believe,  the  Church  of  the  Sacred 
Heart  is  nowhere  near  finished.  Meanwhile,  as 
we  have  already  reminded  ourselves,  the  govern- 


THE   REPUBLIC  355 

ment  of  the  Republic  has  fallen  into  far  from 
clerical  hands.  These  more  intense  republicans 
have  not  as  yet  set  on  foot  a  Temple  of  Reason, 
or  whatever  else,  to  dwarf  the  Sacred  Heart. 
On  the  other  hand,  they  have  lost  few  oppor- 
tunities of  asserting  their  own  opinions  in  fash- 
ions quite  as  aggressive  as  that  practised  by 
clerical  sympathizers  a  few  years  ago.  All  over 
France  you  will  find  monuments  to  the  worthies 
of  the  Republic  and  the  heroes  of  the  Revolu- 
tion. In  the  Louvre  itself,  the  two  monuments 
which  vie  with  the  Arch  of  the  Carrousel  are  a 
most  restless  one  In  memory  of  Gambetta,  and  a 
sketch  for  an  equestrian  statue  not  yet  cast  of 
that  hero  of  two  republics,  Lafayette.  One  of 
the  avenues  which  radiate  from  the  Arc  de 
Triomphe  has  been  deprived  of  its  name  of  im- 
perial victory  and  given  instead  that  of  Victor 
Hugo ;  and  this  not  because  he  was  an  eminent 
poet,  but  because  he  was  a  staunch  republican 
opponent  of  the  Empire.  There  is  hardly  a 
French  town  of  any  considerable  size  anywhere, 
indeed,  which  has  not  given  his  name  to  a  prin- 
cipal street.  And  just  such  violent,  instantly 
aggressive  changes  of  nomenclature  are  still 
occurring  everywhere. 

Now  the  use  of  a  name,  either  for  an  individual 
or  for  a  locality,  is  obviously  to  serve  as  a  means 


356        THE  FRANCE  OF  TODAY 

of  identification.  Any  alteration  of  a  name,  ac- 
cordingly, is  inconvenient  and  confusing.  This 
reasonable  consideration  seems  rarely  to  present 
itself  to  the  minds  of  enthusiastic  French  repub- 
licans. They  are  at  present  disposed  rather  to 
regard  the  names  of  public  places  as  instruments 
of  doctrinal  propagation.  At  Dijon,  for  exam- 
ple, one  of  the  most  memorable  local  worthies  is 
Saint  Bernard,  who  was  born  in  a  little  village 
overlooking  the  old  Burgundian  capital.  A 
bronze  statue  in  his  honor  was  very  properly 
erected  there  some  years  ago;  and  the  square 
which  surrounded  it  —  in  a  new  part  of  the  town 
—  was  duly  named  the  Place  Saint- Bernard. 
How  long  it  retained  the  name  I  do  not  know. 
At  present  it  has  been  renamed  the  Place  Etienne 
Dolet.  So  far  as  I  am  informed,  Etienne  Dolet 
had  little  if  anything  to  do  with  Dijon;  but  be- 
yond question  the  conduct  of  this  skilful  printer, 
who  flourished  at  the  period  of  the  Reformation, 
was  such  as  to  get  him  into  trouble,  and  he  was 
ultimately  burned  at  the  stake.  The  reason  why 
his  name  has  replaced  that  of  Saint  Bernard  is 
not  that  he  was  a  more  memorable  personage,  or 
that  he  had  anything  like  so  much  reason  for  com- 
memoration on  the  spot  in  question.  It  is  sim- 
ply that  Saint  Bernard  was  a  canonized  worthy 
of  the  Catholics,  and  that  Etienne  Dolet  was  a 


THE   REPUBLIC  357 

heretic,  whose  memory  must  remain  obnoxious  to 
Catholic  tradition.  They  have  left  the  saint  on  his 
pedestal ;  but  no  one  who  believes  in  the  faith  he 
preached  can  see  him  there  without  reminder  that 
this  faith  no  longer  has  the  best  of  it. 

Again,  in  the  city  of  Lyons  there  existed,  a  few 
years  ago,  three  distinct  streets,  which  very  con- 
veniently had  three  distinct  names.  What  these 
names  were  I  do  not  remember.  The  fact  per- 
manently impressed  on  my  mind  is  that  at  pres- 
ent all  three  bear  the  same  name  —  that  of  Emile 
Zola.  They  are  distinguished,  I  believe,  as  Rue, 
Avenue,  and  Boulevard ;  or  perhaps  one  of  them 
is  a  Place,  and  not  a  street.  All  I  feel  quite  sure 
of  is  that  the  confusion  is  annoying  to  travellers 
and  to  cabmen.  It  is  more  than  annoying  —  it 
is  persistently  exasperating  —  to  residents  in  any 
of  the  three  who  do  not  chance  unreservedly  to 
admire  the  work  of  the  eminent  novelist  in  ques- 
tion. Even  his  most  eager  admirers  can  hardly 
deny  his  tendency  to  pornographic  excess,  which 
goes  far  to  counteract  the  impression  of  his  in- 
disputable power.  Few  would  pretend  him,  as 
a  man  of  letters,  a  model  for  the  young.  But 
this  is  not  the  question.  During  the  progress 
of  the  Dreyfus  affair  he  devoted  himself,  with 
immense  enthusiasm,  to  the  cause  of  what  he 
believed   to  be  justice.     In   so   doing  he  was 


858       THE   FRANCE   OF   TODAY 

probably  encouraged  by  the  fact  that  he  found 
arrayed  against  him  the  general  consent  of  the 
Church  —  an  institution  of  which  he  had  been 
a  violent  opponent  throughout  his  literary  life. 
The  certain  fact  is  that,  as  a  most  conspicuous 
advocate  for  Dreyfus,  he  made  himself  particu> 
larly  objectionable  to  conservative  and  clerical 
people  who  believed,  on  general  principles,  that  a 
case,  once  decided,  had  better  not  be  reopened. 
Meanwhile,  this  same  line  of  conduct  had  made 
him  a  partisan  hero  of  the  anticlericals.  Anti- 
clerical people  came  into  power  at  Lyons. 
Among  the  first  things  they  proceeded  to  do  in 
the  heat  of  their  victory  was  to  name  for  ZolsLXlQt 
one  public  placed  l)Ut  three  separate  ones.  The 
conciliatory  wisdom  of  this  proceeding  seems 
rivalled  only  by  its  practical  good  sense. 

In  some  towns  this  process  has  been  carried 
further  still.  I  remember  one  where  a  number 
of  small  streets  bore  extremely  local  names. 
These  I  did  not  take  the  precaution  to  copy;  but 
they  run  somewhat  as  follows:  "Rue  Jean  Duval 
(Maire  1882)."  Without  the  parenthesis  even 
the  oldest  inhabitant  might  now  be  at  pains  to 
remember  who  Jean  Duval  was.  His  name, 
however,  has  supplanted  that  of  the  saint  for 
whom  the  street  had  been  named  ever  since  the 
Middle  Ages;  and  if  you  should  take  the  pains 


THE  REPUBLIC  359 

to  look  into  his  municipal  history,  you  might  very 
likely  discover  that  he  had  fallen  out  with  the 
priest  in  charge  of  the  neighboring  church.  Now, 
whatever  the  personal  merits  or  faults  of  Jean 
Duval,  there  can  be  little  question  that  his  name 
is  not  so  easy  to  remember  as  that  of  Saint  Peter, 
we  will  say;  and  consequently  that  it  is  intrinsi- 
cally less  adapted  to  the  purpose  of  naming  a 
street.  I  ventured  to  make  this  observation  to 
a  republican  inhabitant  of  the  town  in  question. 
He  admitted  the  justice  of  my  view,  except,  he 
went  on  to  say,  that  it  showed  a  foreigner's  igno- 
rance of  the  local  situation.  My  argument,  it 
seems,  had  actually  been  presented  to  the  author- 
ities of  the  town;  the  householders  of  the  street 
had  preferred  its  old  name,  as  a  matter  of  obvi- 
ous convenience;  the  authorities  had  been  dis- 
posed to  take  their  view  of  the  case;  the  matter 
had  been  laid  over  till  the  next  meeting  of  the 
local  council.  But  then,  what  happened?  M. 
le  Cure  had  preached  a  jubilant  sermon  to  the 
effect  that  an  impious  attempt  to  dislodge  Saint 
Peter  had  been  frustrated  by  the  faithful;  the 
clerical  newspaper  of  the  town  had  flapped  its 
wings  and  crowed  like  the  cock  of  Saint  Peter 
himself.  And  at  the  next  meeting  of  the  town 
authorities  down  went  Saint  Peter  and  up  went 
Jean  Duval.     The  unhappy  saint,  it  appeared. 


860       THE  FRANCE  OF  TODAY 

had  ceased  to  be  a  topographical  fact,  and  had 
become  a  political. 

A  more  familiar  manifestation  of  this  spirit 
was  widely  published  a  few  years  ago.  The  law 
courts  of  the  Republic,  continuing  the  tradition 
of  the  Empire,  and  I  believe  of  all  French  gov- 
ernments since  the  Concordat,  had  been  orna- 
mented with  crucifixes,  which  meant,  in  point 
of  fact,  just  about  as  much  as  the  Bibles  used 
for  the  administration  of  oaths  in  English  or 
American  courts  of  justice.  The  anticlerical 
authorities  of  the  Republic  came  to  the  conclu- 
sion that  these  had  best  be  removed.  In  this 
they  showed  good  sense.  There  was  no  actual 
relation  between  the  administration  of  French 
law  and  the  doctrines  of  Catholic  Christianity. 
There  was  no  reason  for  pretending  that  any  ex- 
isted. The  crucifix  was  evidently  exasperating 
to  anticlerical  prejudice.  The  absence  of  it, 
when  people  once  got  used  to  the  new  state  of 
things,  need  not  excite  any  prejudice  whatever.  If 
the  crucifixes  had  been  quietly  taken  away  from 
the  court-rooms,  accordingly,  the  process  might 
have  been  salutary,  as  distracting  from  public 
notice  an  evident  matter  of  rancorous  dispute. 
Instead  of  seizing  this  opportunity,  the  Republi- 
can authorities  preferred  to  emphasize  their  anti- 
clerical sentiments  in  the  strongest  way  they  could 


THE   REPUBLIC  361 

think  of.  So,  of  all  days  in  the  year,  they  selected 
Good  Friday  for  publicly  removing  from  their 
courts  of  justice  the  traditional  image  of  Christ. 
One's  mind  recurs,  in  contrast,  to  the  old  story 
of  the  high- church  parson  who  converted  his 
communion-table  into  an  altar  by  moving  it  an 
inch  every  week,  until  —  quite  undetected  by  his 
evangelical  congregation  —  he  got  it  safe  against 
the  wall. 

In  fact,  as  we  have  reminded  ourselves  enough 
and  to  spare,  whenever  the  extreme  partisans  of 
the  Republic  in  France  have  got  the  government 
into  their  hands,  they  have  conducted  themselves 
with  no  more  reserve,  with  no  more  attempt  to 
conciliate  doubtful  or  hostile  sympathy,  than  was 
shown  by  reactionary  people  when  for  a  while 
these  had  the  best  of  it  in  Republican  politics. 
Rather  they  have  been  disposed  to  dwell  trium- 
phantly on  every  detail  of  the  differences  between 
themselves  and  their  conscientious  opponents. 
They  have  insisted  on  the  full  extent  of  their 
radical  doctrines.  They  have  exulted  in  every 
triumph.  They  have  often  behaved,  in  fact,  as 
if  they  were  complete  advocates  of  a  partisan 
tyranny,  differing  chiefly  from  the  conventional 
tyrannies  of  history  in  the  fact  that  it  pretends 
to  be  the  tyranny  not  of  an  individual,  but  of  a 
special  class  describing  itself  as  the  people. 


362        THE  FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

Had  the  Republic,  however,  really  been  so 
radical  and  so  tyrannical  as  its  utterances  and 
its  petty  acts  might  lead  us  to  infer,  the  present 
state  of  France  could  hardly  be  so  healthy  and  so 
prosperous  as  it  appears.  The  Republic  seems 
French  to  the  core,  in  the  fact  that  it  lays  down  a 
system  as  near  logical  consistency  as  it  can  devise. 
That  system  has  the  advffitage  of  being  compara- 
tively new;  it  is  consequently  contradicted  by 
fewer  incompatible  facts  than  would  be  the  case 
with  an  old  system,  like  that  of  the  ancien  regime 
or  that  of  the  Church.  Being  human,  nevertheless, 
it  cannot  help  being  confronted  with  some  facts 
—  among  others,  with  persistent  contrary  preju- 
dices —  not  to  be  reconciled  with  its  doctrines, 
p.-.33iese,  accordingly,  it  attempts  either  to  ignore^ 
or  to  suppress  after  the  good  old  human  fashion. 
It  does  not  try  to  reconcile  opposition;  it  tries 
rather  to  impose  its  own  principles,  by  force  of 
assertion,  or,  if  need  be,  by  civil  force.  It  seems 
still  affected  by  the  youthfuT  dream  that  men  on 
earth  can  somehow  manage  to  have  their  own 
way. 

The  principles  which  it  holds  and  promulgates 
appear,  on  the  whole,  to  be  those  of  extreme  the- 
oretical democracy.  There  is  no  reason  to  doubt 
that  it  holds  and  promulgates  them  with  si;a- 
cerity.     At  the  same  time,  so  far  as  a  foreisnr* 


THE   REPUBLIC  363 

can  understand  what  these  principles  signify  to 
the  French  mind,  they  are  by  no  means  identical 
with  the  principles  of  democracy  cherished  by 
Americans,  who  have  always  lived  under  a  dem- 
ocratic system  of  government.     With  us,  as  with 
other  peoples,  the  commonplaces  of  democracy 
have  been  popularly  set  forth  during  the  nine- 
teenth century  almost  without  reserve.    In  prac- 
tice, however,  American  democracy  has  hitherto 
confined  itself  to  insistence  on  the  principle  that 
government  should  derive  its  just  powers  from 
the  consent  of  the  governed.    It  has  rather  main- 
tained than  weakened  the  traditions  of  its  own 
constitutional  system.    It  has  not  attempted  class 
tyranny.    We  have  talked  very  valiantly  about  the 
people  and  their  rights.   We  have  never  clearly  de- 
fined what  that  term  '*  the  people  "  ought  in  truth 
to  signify.     In  conduct,  the  while,  we  have  acted 
on  the  tacit  assumption  that  a  complete  people 
consists  of  no  one  class  or  kind  of  men  —  high  or 
low,  learned  or  ignorant,  few  or  many;  but  rather 
of  the  inevitable  variety  of  human  beings  who 
must  exist,  each  In  his  own  sphere,  in  any  healthy 
society.     Democracy  with  us  seems  to  mean  gov- 
ernment by  common  consent  for  the  common 
good.     Practically,    so    far   as   democracy   has 
prospered  in  France,  it  has  signified  even  there 
government  for  the  common  good,  but  with  the 


364       THE  FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

element  of  common  consent  decidedly  subordi- 
nated.  In  theory,  however,  and  it  utters  its 
theories  with  intense  effusiveness,  it  seems  to 
mean  among  the  French  a  system  of  govern- 
ment conducted  in  the  interests  of  the  masses, 
as  distinguished  from  those  of  the  better  classes. 
It  fiercely  condemned  the  privileges  of  the  better 
classes  in  former  times.  In  their  place,  it  now 
seems  determined  to  do  all  in  its  power  to  establish 
something  like  privilege  for  the  common  people. 
How  far  it  remains  from  anything  like  such  an 
achievement  is  proved  by  the  persistence  of  the 
better  classes  throughout  France.  It  is  proved 
by  the  stability  of  the  general  social  structure 
there.  It  is  proved  by  the  beautiful  solidarity 
of  French  domestic  life.  It  is  proved,  among 
people  of  all  classes,  by  the  steady  conscientious- 
ness with  which  they  maintain,  and  transmit  to 
their  children,  their  ancestral  traditions.  The 
extreme  result  of  democratic  doctrine  —  the  ar- 
bitrary supremacy  of  the  lower  classes  —  how- 
ever generous  in  impulse  and  agreeable  to  fervid 
faith,  is  something  from  which  France  still  seems 
far  as  ever.  For  the  practical  consequences  of 
theoretical  democracy,  insisting  that  the  ideal 
of  equality  shall  supplant  that  of  excellence, 
would  be  either  Utopian  or  barbarous,  or  both. 
And  no  one  who  knows  contemporary  France 


THE   REPUBLIC  365 

could  possibly  mistake  it  for  either  Barbary  or 
Utopia. 

How  eagerly,  on  the  other  hand,  the  advocates 
of  an  equality  sanctioned  by  neither  divine  law, 
scientific  observation,  nor  human  experience,  oc- 
casionally try  to  make  their  principles  dominant, 
was  lately  brought  to  my  notice  by  an  anecdote 
I  heard  from  a  professor  in  a  provincial  second- 
ary school.  He  happened  to  be  called  on  to  ex- 
amine candidates  for  free  instruction  —  for  state 
scholarships.  His  subject  was  French  history; 
the  candidates  were  children  from  twelve  to 
fifteen  years  of  age  who  had  honorably  com- 
pleted the  course  of  instruction  in  the  primary 
schools  of  the  region.  In  general,  as  I  under- 
stand the  case,  they  were  of  the  respectable 
middle  class  —  the  smaller  bourgeoisie^  or  the 
more  well-to-do  peasantry.  Their  examiner  be- 
gan by  asking  them  various  questions  concerning 
the  older  history  of  France.  Their  confusion 
of  mind  was  appalling.  They  hopelessly  mixed 
up  kings  and  queens,  cardinals  and  poets,  wars 
and  rebellions ;  the  only  fixed  idea  in  their  minds 
seemed  to  be  that  France  had  formerly  been 
in  a  state  of  deplorable  turbulence,  much  like 
that  which  was  said  once  to  have  been  taught 
concerning  ancient  Rome  in  the  common  schools 
of  Russia:  —  "The  last  of  the  kings  was  Tar- 


866        THE  FRANCE   OF   TODAY 

quinius  Superbus,  who  was  dethroned  by  an  un- 
principled demagogue  named  Brutus.  A  period 
of  hideous  disturbance  followed,  which  was 
brought  to  an  end  by  the  imperial  genius  of 
Julius  Csesar."  Startled  by  the  extraordinary  ig- 
norance displayed  by  these  young  French  candi- 
dates for  honorable  distinction  in  the  history  of 
their  country,  their  examiner  happened  to  think 
that  he  had  put  them  no  questions  concerning 
the  Revolution.  The  moment  he  touched  on 
that,  the  clouds  rolled  away.  There  was  no 
Revolutionary  incident  so  trivial  that  they  did 
not  know  both  the  circumstances  of  it  and  the 
precise  date;  some  of  them  could  transpose  the 
Revolutionary  calendar  into  the  terms  of  common 
civilization  at  a  moment's  notice;  they  knew  by 
heart  not  only  the  great  men  of  the  Revolution, 
but  the  smaller  ones,  too.  They  had  been  taught 
and  had  learned  the  history  of  France,  in  short 
—  and  France,  we  must  remember,  was  their  own 
dear  native  land  —  as  if  until  1789  the  whole 
country  had  been  plunged  in  depths  of  mediae- 
val darkness,  too  dense  to  deserve  the  pains  of 
intelligent  exploration. 

This  case  is  solitary  and  perhaps  unique. 
But  even  if  it  indicate  how  apostles  of  democ- 
racy now  and  then  insist  that  nothing  be  taught 
ignorant  children  except  the  doctrine  and  the 


THE   REPUBLIC  367 

legends  and  the  pious  tales  of  the  Rights  of  Man, 
there  is  no  reason  why  we  should  blame  their 
purpose.  In  its  philanthropic  sincerity  it  is  as 
worthy  of  respect  as  is  the  contrary  purpose  of 
so  many  religious  teachers,  who  suppress  or  dis- 
tort the  facts  of  heresy  everywhere.  Whether 
doctrine,  legend,  and  pious  tale  be  devout  or 
philanthropic,  they  are  honestly  meant;  they  rep- 
resent conscientious  effort  to  direct  the  course 
of  children  toward  righteousness.  On,  the  other 
hand,  there  can  be  no  question  that  any  teaching 
of  French  history  which  neglects  what  happened 
in  France  throughout  its  thousand  years  of  pre- 
Revolutionary  existence,  deliberately  discards  a 
priceless  treasure  of  national  tradition.  The 
mood  which  would  dictate  such  a  policy,  too  — 
however  aspiring  and  devoted  in  purpose  —  in- 
volves further  injury  than  this  to  the  full  welfare 
of  the  nation.  It  would  evidently  exclude  from 
public  responsibility  anyone  who  holds  this  elder 
treasure  of  national  tradition  comparable  with 
the  newer  tradition  of  Revolutionary  philan- 
thropy. Thus  it  deprives  the  form  of  govern- 
ment which  it  advocates  of  what,  in  happier 
case,  might  be  its  most  confident  hope  for 
endurance. 

For  no  one  who  comes  to  know  the  France  of 
today  can  question  that  the  men  in  actual  power, 


368         THE   FRANCE   OF   TODAY 

however  doctrinarian  they  may  seem,  and  how- 
ever tyrannical  may  seem  the  acts  which  they  oc- 
casionally commit,  are  men  of  serious  purpose, 
of  alert  intelligence,  and  of  moral  dignity.  But 
neither  can  any  such  visitor  doubt  that  there  is 
equally  serious  purpose,  equally  alert  intelligence, 
equal  moral  dignity,  in  many  of  their  opponents. 
Were  the  republic  as  a  system  of  government  now 
in  open  danger,  distrust  of  all  sentiment  not  in- 
tensely republican  might  be  a  sad  necessity  of 
republican  polity.  As  the  Republic  stands  today, 
one  can  perceive  no  reason  why  a  policy  of  more 
hearty  mutual  confidence,  of  more  magnanimous 
sympathy,  should  not  prove  as  compatible  with 
astuteness  as  it  would  surely  be  with  generosity. 
France  still  seems  a  country  of  irreconcilable 
antagonisms;  yet  France,  I  believe,  has  reached 
a  point  where  such  reconciliation  is  no  longer 
inconceivable. 

Born  of  necessity,  as  we  have  seen,  the  Republic 
has  had  the  unique  fortune  of  persistence  through- 
out the  range  of  average  human  memory.  It 
has  happily  proved  favorable  to  material  welfare ; 
and  meanwhile  chance  has  greatly  weakened 
the  hold  on  imagination  of  either  of  the  sys- 
tems —  royalist  or  imperialist  —  which  during 
the  earlier  years  of  its  existence  were  threatening 
rivals  in  their  claim  to  power  and  to  loyalty. 


THE  REPUBLIC  369 

Another  fact  about  it  is  surely  true.  All  men 
now  living  in  France,  whatever  their  personal 
convictions,  are  men  who  have  lived  for  more 
than  thirty-five  years  under  no  other  form  of 
government  than  this.  They  have  inherited 
from  the  traditions  of  former  times  the  habit  of 
mutual  intolerance  and  suspicion.  Each  side 
will  honestly  tell  you,  in  all  solemnity,  that  the 
advocates  of  other  principles  than  theirs  are 
either  densely  stupid  or  deliberately  wicked. 
Yet  when  you  meet  those  other  men,  who  will 
tell  you  just  the  same  things  about  their  critics, 
you  cannot  feel  that  in  truth  they  are  either 
unintelligent  or  evil.  In  any  party,  anywhere, 
there  are  unworthy  people.  What  is  most 
salient  to  a  traveller  among  divergent  kinds  of 
Frenchmen  is  not  this  fact  that  some  of  them 
fail  to  command  his  complete  esteem.  It  is 
rather  that  wherever  he  goes,  among  radicals  or 
reactionaries,  devout  Catholics  or  philanthropic 
philosophers,  he  will  find  honest  gentlemen,  in 
the  best  sense  of  the  term.  There  is  less  discord 
of  the  spirit  in  France  than  Frenchmen  seem 
to  dream. 

There  are  symptoms,  meantime,  that  the 
French  themselves  may  at  last  be  approaching 
a  point  where  they  can  do  more  justice  to  one 
another  than  has  been  quite  possible  through 

24 


370        THE  FRANCE  OF  TODAY 

the  revolutionary  nineteenth  century.  A  happy 
suggestion  of  this  came  to  me  most  unexpectedly 
in  the  course  of  an  excursion  to  some  interest- 
ing old  towns  in  central  France.  A  month  or 
two  before,  I  had  written  for  a  French  review 
an  article  on  contemporary  politics  in  America. 
In  the  course  of  this,  I  had  mentioned,  as  a 
commonplace,  the  view  of  American  democracy 
which  I  have  long  entertained:  namely,  that 
it  is  not  the  tyranny  of  any  one  class  over  any 
other,  but  the  consent  of  all  classes  —  none 
secured  by  inflexible  privilege  —  to  exist  to- 
gether under  a  system  trusted  by  all  to  act  as 
guardian  and  agent  of  their  common  welfare. 
My  pleasant  provincial  vacation  had  distracted 
my  mind  from  this  little  essay  in  political  phi- 
losophy. I  had  passed  a  delightful  day  in 
travelling  through  beautiful  and  interesting 
country;  and  came  hungry  to  my  dinner  in  the 
chief  hotel  of  a  small  town  locally  famous  for 
romantic  mediaeval  buildings  and  an  excellent 
secondary  school.  Some  of  my  neighbors  at 
table  presently  proved  to  be  teachers  in  this 
establishment;  they  were  highly  intelligent  young 
men,  evidently  of  extremely  republican  sympa- 
thies; and  they  were  animatedly  discussing  a 
phase  of  democratic  doctrine  new  to  them. 
To  my  rather  amused  surprise,  this  turned  out 


THE   REPUBLIC  371 

to  have  been  suggested  by  my  own  article.  They 
had  no  idea  who  I  was,  and,  I  fancy,  not  much 
that  I  was  attending  to  what  they  said.  In  point 
of  fact,  however,  they  were  eagerly  wondering 
whether  my  own  published  opinion  —  that  a 
truly  healthy  democracy  could  never  coexist  with 
a  persistent  misunderstanding  between  social 
classes  —  might  not  throw  light  on  the  present 
troubles  of  France.  The  democracy  of  America 
they  freely  admitted  to  display  a  quality  of  tradi- 
tional endurance  not  yet  evident  in  the  newer 
democracy  of  their  own  country.  The  democ- 
racy of  France,  they  went  on  to  say,  had  always 
been  intolerantly  distrustful  of  the  old  privileged 
class,  the  nobility.  They  admitted  that  they  had 
been  so  themselves ;  no  other  course  had  occurred 
to  them  as  possible.  Was  it  conceivable  that  they  / 
had  been  mistaken  —  that  the  French  people 
could  never  be  complete  unless  it  grew  willing 
to  count  as  an  essential  part  of  itself  that  very 
nobility,  which,  after  all,  was  as  French  as  any 
of  them.? 

In  other  words,  it  appeared,  these  young 
Frenchmen  had  been  at  least  momentarily  im- 
pressed by  two  or  three  of  the  political  sugges- 
tions set  forth  in  my  article.  Any  stable  national 
government,  for  one  thing,  must  take  into  account 
the  full  range  of  rooted  national  tradition.     This 


372         THE   FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

is  obviously  the  case  in  England  to-day,  where  the 
nation,  as  a  whole,  cherishes  with  equal  respect 
and  affection  the  memory  of  men  who  took  the 
side  of  the  king  in  the  civil  wars  of  the  seventeenth 
century  and  of  those  who  took  the  side  of  Parlia- 
ment. In  London  there  are  statues  of  both 
Charles  I  and  Cromwell;  and  England  could 
not  be  the  England  of  our  own  time  if  any  con- 
siderable body  of  Englishmen  now  desired  to 
overthrow  either  of  them.  Something  similar 
is  true  already  of  our  own  Republic,  the  United 
States.  Little  more  than  forty  years  ago,  we 
were  engaged  in  the  most  portentous  civil  war  of 
modern  history;  to-day  the  survivors  of  that  con- 
flict are  fellow-countrymen  whose  mortal  enmities 
are  beginning  to  be  fused  in  precious  historical 
memories.  Our  American  Republic  has  had  no 
more  loyal  services  in  all  its  career  than  it  has 
received  already  from  honest  men  who  fought 
hard  against  it  through  four  dreadful  years. 
Monuments  to  Union  soldiers  in  the  North  and 
to  Confederate  soldiers  in  the  South  have  already 
been  consecrated  by  the  friendly  presence  of  men 
who  fought  against  the  dead  they  commemorate. 
It  will  not  be  long,  one  grows  confident,  be- 
fore the  descendants  of  both  sides  shall  find 
themselves  ready  to  join  in  equal  tribute  to  the 
heroes  of  both.     When  that  time  comes,  our  true 


THE  REPUBLIC  373 

national  tradition  will  come  once  more  to  be  that 
of  a  united  country. 

Again,  it  is  beyond  peradventure  that  an  en- 
during democracy  can  never  exist  when  only  a 
portion  of  a  people  —  a  single  social  class  —  is 
dominant,  to  the  exclusion  of  the  rest.  Such  a 
state  of  affairs  is  a  democracy  only  in  name.  In 
fact,  it  is  at  best  an  oligarchy  —  and  oligarchy 
is  oligarchy,  whether  the  ruling  class  be  large 
or  small,  high  or  low.  What  is  more,  good 
sense  should  seem  to  remind  us  that  the  oli- 
garchical tyranny  of  the  masses  must  be  more 
dangerous  than  an  oligarchical  tyranny  of  the 
better  sort.  For,  to  put  the  case  at  its  mildest, 
the  masses  must  be  animated  by  less  intelligence 
and  by  more  fickle  instability  of  emotion.  To 
us  of  America,  immemorially  habituated  to  the 
practice  of  democracy,  the  notion  of  submitting 
ourselves  to  the  direction  of  a  small  privileged 
class  is  abhorrent.  Hardly  less  so,  in  reality, 
would  be  the  notion  of  submitting  ourselves 
to  the  absolute  sovereignty  of  a  lower  class, 
privileged  in  point  of  mere  numbers  by  the  very 
fact  of  its  lack  of  individual  privilege.  We  are 
restive  at  this  moment  under  the  suspicion  that 
too  much  power  among  ourselves  is  gathering 
in  the  hands  of  rich  men.  We  are  little  less 
restive  when  we  scent  the  danger  of  finding  our 


374         THE   FRANCE   OF  TODAY 

country  at  the  mercy  of  trades- unions.  It  is  not 
that  either  form  of  oligarchy  might  not  conceiv- 
ably work  well.  It  is  rather  that  both  alike  are 
oligarchy,  and  not  democracy. 

For  a  true  democracy,  I  cannot  too  earnestly 
repeat,  must  tolerantly  include  all  manner  of 
men.  It  must  give  each  his  due,  and  demand 
only  its  own  due  from  each.  It  must  preserve  the 
structure  of  society  so  firmly  that  the  opportunity 
of  a  career  shall  always  be  open  to  talent.  It 
must  preserve  such  liberty  of  the  individual  that 
no  inherited  privilege  shall  keep  weakness  long 
secure,  nor  stand  in  the  way  of  ability  born  in  a 
station  too  narrow  for  its  power.  But  it  may 
never  safely  meddle  with  the  elemental  truths 
of  human  nature  —  pretending  things  excellent 
which  in  reality  are  commonplace.  It  may  never 
safely  deny  the  fatal  fact  that  most  men,  in  what- 
ever range  of  human  effort,  are  bound  to  have 
their  superiors  in  power,  and  that  civic  insecurity 
is  the  surest  means  to  offer  the  semblance  of  a 
career  not  to  talent  but  to  mischief.  It  must 
recognize  in  itself  not  an  immortal  and  inspired 
system,  but  only  one  of  the  means  by  which  hu- 
man beings  attempt  so  to  govern  society  that 
society  may  advance  in  prosperity  and  in  right- 
eousness. It  must  humbly  admit  itself  as  subject 
as  any  polity  which  it  opposes  to  the  insidious 


THE   REPUBLIC  375 

temptation  of  tyranny.  If  democracy  can  truly 
rise  to  such  full  sense  as  this  of  its  duties  and  its 
limitations,  it  may  grow,  by  such  happy  historical 
chance  as  has  been  our  own  in  America,  into  the 
venerable  sanction  of  historical  tradition.  Then, 
and  only  then,  it  can  confidently  hold  high  hopes 
for  the  future.  And  these  hopes  shall  be  the 
higher  and  the  more  confident,  when  the  nation 
which  submits  itself  to  democracy  is  such  a  nation 
as  the  France  of  today,  rich  with  many  noble 
memories  instead  of  with  only  one.  In  outv 
ward  semblance  the  vital  traditions  of  France 
seem  fatally  divergent,  but  at  least  they  have 
the  deep  community  of  enthusiastic  devotion  to 
ideals. 

Though  the  dream  that  these  several  ideals 
can  ever  be  reconciled  may  well  seem  Utopian, 
it  already  has  the  sanction  of  a  memorable 
phrase.  Again  and  again,  amid  surroundings 
which  seemed  hopelessly  at  odds  with  each  other, 
this  same  little  story  was  told  me,  and  always  with 
the  same  admiring  acknowledgment  of  its  truth. 
For  it  goes  straight  to  the  heart,  not  of  one  party 
0!»- another,  not  of  one  or  another  system  of  doc- 
trinal tradition,  but  of  all  alike.  It  touches  the 
common  imagination  of  the  whole  people  —  not 
in  the  mere  democratic  sense  of  the  word,  but 
in  that  broader  and  truer  sense  which  makes 


376       THE  FRANCE  OF  TODAY 

the  French  people  comprehend  everyone  in  whose 
veins  French  blood  is  flowing. 

The  greatest  military  calamity  of  the  war  of 
1870  was  the  surrender  of  Metz  with  its  intact 
army,  by  Marshal  Bazaine.  What  his  motive 
may  have  been  remains  debatable.  Whatever 
the  case,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  he  gave  up, 
without  a  blow,  a  force  with  which  the  invaders 
of  his  country  would  otherwise  have  had  to 
reckon.  Wherefore,  in  due  time,  when  the  war 
was  finished,  he  was  brought  to  military  trial. 
There,  in  his  own  defence,  he  maintained  that  at 
the  moment  of  his  surrender  the  Empire  had 
fallen.  His  duty  had  been  to  defend  the  govern- 
ment. With  the  disappearance  of  constituted 
authority  it  came  to  an  end.  The  citadel  was 
in  the  hands  of  the  enemy.  The  Empire  was  a 
thing  of  the  past.  What  was  left  to  fight  for? 
Nothing  —  "7Z  rCy  avail  rien'^ 

To  which  instant  answer  was  made  by  the 
member  of  his  court  of  judges  who  could  make 
it  best.  From  the  time  when  the  kingdom  of 
Louis  Philippe  had  fallen  the  princes  of  the 
house  of  Orleans  had  been  mostly  in  exile  f^?'^ 
their  native  land.  Their  presence  there  in  any 
position  would  have  seemed  to  menace  either  the 
Republic  which  for  a  little  while  ensued  on  the 
constitutional  monarchy  or  the  revived  Empire 


THE   REPUBIC  377 

before  which  the  Second  Republic  fell.  But  the 
moment  that  France  was  in  national  danger, 
struggling  with  the  terrific  force  of  foreign  inva- 
sion, the  Orleanist  princes  came  back  to  their 
country,  not  as  royal  personages,  but  only  as 
Frenchmen.  As  such  they  were  welcomed  with 
every  other  loyal  exile ;  and  the  royal  prince  who 
of  all  his  kind  has  perhaps  done  most  to  re- 
establish the  dignity  of  royal  character  in  the  es- 
teem of  a  radical  century  was  among  the  officers 
to  sit  in  judgment  on  the  accused  marshal  of  the 
Second  Empire.  It  was  he  —  the  Due  d' Aumale, 
the  son  of  Louis  Philippe — who  made  the  answer 
so  eloquent  to  every  French  heart.  There  was 
nothing  to  defend,  said  Bazaine  —  "//  ny  avait 
rien,''  ^'Monsieur  le  Marechaly^  said  the  royal 
prince,  "  il  restait  la  France "  —  "  There  was 

France." 

So  there  was,  and  so  there  is,  and  so  there 
shall  be.  France  has  been  the  France  of  the 
Empire;  France  to-day  is  the  France  of  the  Re- 
public; and  no  Frenchman  who  would  treasure 
the  full  richness  of  his  national  memories  may 
wisely  forget  the  glories  of  either.  But  neither 
comprehends  France,  any  more  than  France 
was  completely  comprehended  in  that  consti- 
tutional monarchy  which  made  the  house  of 
Orleans  for  a  while  sovereign  by  the  will  of  the 


378       THE  FRANCE  OP  TODAY 

people.  The  true  France  embraces  all  three, 
md  more  and  more  besides.  It  is  the  France 
'of  the  song  of  Roland,  the  France  of  Saint  Louis, 
^e  France  of  Jeanne  d'Arc.  It  is  the  France 
of  the  Renaissance,  and  the  France  of  Henry  IV; 
the  France  of  Richelieu,  and  the  France  which 
imposed  an  imperial  standard  on  European  civ- 
ilization during  the  great  century  of  Louis  XIV. 
It  is  the  France  of  the  old  regijne^sis  well,  th^ 
France  of  the  Revolution,  and  the  France  of 
the  Empire.  It  is  the  France  of  that  bewil- 
dering, aspiring  nineteenth  century  over  whose 
history  we  have  been  lingering  together.  No 
single  one  of  these  memories,  nor  yet  of  the 
myriad  others  which  they  awaken  has  created 
the  France  of  today.  All  of  them  together 
combine  to  make  France  heroic  —  none  alone, 
none  apart  or  neglected.  Without  every  glory 
of  its  glorious  past,  France  would  be  the  poorer, 
the  lesser.  All  of  them,  blended  and  shining 
together,  make  France  that  inexhaustibly  noble 
fact  which  those  who  come  to  know  it,  and  thus 
grow  to  love  it,  must  always  feel  it  to  be. 

So  when,  now  and  again,  good  friends  were 
apt  to  speak  of  their  country  as  the  Republic, 
I  found  myself,  as  I  find  myself  still,  disposed 
in  answer  to  speak  not  of  the  Republic,  but  of 
France.     This  implied  no  lack  of  eager  response 


THE  REPUBLIC  879 

to  the  kindness  with  which  French  Republicans 
welcomed  me  to  their  friendly  country.  It  im- 
plied, indeed,  no  shadow  of  doubt  that  the  sys- 
tem of  the  present  Republic,  strengthening  as  it  is 
into  an  immemorial  tradition,  is  the  system  under 
which  that  friendly  country  may  most  confidently 
hope  for  a  future  as  admirable  as  its  past.  What 
I  felt  was  only  that  the  word  "Republic"  still 
might  seem  to  mean  not  the  whole  nation,  but 
only  the  accident  of  its  present  sovereignty.  To 
the  French  themselves  the  Republic  still  appears 
not  so  much  national  as  partisan.  I  long,  with 
the  best  of  them,  for  the  time  when  it  shall  have 
grown  to  be  no  longer  partisan,  but  national;  and 
I  believe  that  the  time  will  come.  But  even  then 
we  shall  be  truer  to  the  full  splendor  of  the  past 
if  we  salute  the  Republic  as  France,  and  not 
France  as  the  Republic.  Nothing  less  than  the 
utmost  can  comprehend  it  all. 


INDEX 


INDEX 


Abb€  Constantin,  252. 

Academic  Frangaise,  membership 
in,  88-90;  ceremony  of  receiv- 
ing members,  90-93;  equality 
among,  94. 

AgrSgS,  degree  of,  19,  30. 

American,  books,  204;  candor, 
149-151;  colleges,  305;  democ- 
racy, 363,  370,  371;  education, 
201-203;  fashion  in  religion, 
278;  impressions  of  French  soci- 
ety, 57-59;  national  feeling,  372; 
Protestant  tradition,  258;  Revo- 
lution, 303-308;  social  classes, 
60,61;  social  prejudices,  55,  56. 

Anecdotes,  69-71;  74;  105-109; 
113,  114;  128-130;  133,  134; 
142,  143;  157-159;  160;  165- 
167;  183;  194;  199;  225;  226; 
227;  249;  261;  283,  284;  286; 
297-300;  335,  336;  365,  366; 
370,  371. 

Archbishops,  martyrdom  of,  252, 
253. 

Architecture,  religious,  245-247. 

Aristocrats,  73-77. 

Army,  anticlerical  investigations  of, 
283,  284. 

Artists,  73,  77^  characteristics,  78, 
80;  social  position,  79-82;  229- 
231. 

Aumale,  Due  d',  90,  377. 

Bachelier,  degree  of,  12-14,  30. 
Bazaine,  Marshal,  376. 
Beaumarchais,  301. 
Beljam^,  Professor,  15. 
Bishops,    appointed    by    govern- 
ment, 276.  277. 


Boissier,  Gaston,  90. 

Bourgeois,  the,  55  et  seq.;  signifi- 
cance of  the  term,  59-61;  char- 
acteristics of,  62-67;  social 
phases  among,  67-71;  heredi- 
tary traditions,  72,  73;  feeling 
toward  aristocrats  and  artists, 
73,  74;  social  relations  with 
aristocrats  and  artists,  73-77; 
family  feeling  among,  109,  123; 
progress  of  Catholicism  among, 
281. 

Brazil,  194,  195. 

British  Museum,  328. 

Cffisar,  319.  320. 

Calvinism,  248,  258. 

Candor,  English  and  French  ideals 
of,  149-151,  219-221. 

Cards,  visiting,  83-85. 

Catholic  Christianity,  triple 
strength  of,  257;  opposition  to, 
352-361 ;  Church,  see  the  Church. 

Character,  French  national.  82; 
misconceptions  of,  149  et  seq.; 
explanation  of  paradox  of,  174- 
182;  intellectual  candor,  63,  64, 
151,  169,  182,  219-223,  239; 
intensity  of  conviction,  181, 
182;  devotion  to  duty,  192; 
emotional  nature,  46,  145;  good- 
breeding,  66,  69;  industry,  64, 
65;  intolerance  of  opinions  of 
others,  182-188;  loyalty,  189; 
modesty  of  spirit,  146-149;  per- 
sonal honor,  162;  devotion  to 
philosophy,  171-175;  precision 
of  perception,  170;  precision  of 
conduct,  207,  208;    deeply  re- 


383 


384 


INDEX 


ligious,  242,  248;  personal  reti- 
cence, 146,  173;  self-control, 
157;  seriousness,  156,  157,  192; 
simplicity,  62;  impulsive  sym- 
pathy, 189,  190;  insistence  on 
system,  162-164,  170,  173,  212- 
214,  218,  240;  high  temper.  160. 
161. 

Charles  X,  344,  345. 

Ch&teau  of  St.  Germain,  restora- 
tion of,  347,  348. 

Children,  41,  42;  interest  in,  101- 
104;  affection  for  parents,  109- 
111, 120, 127;  education  of,  201, 
202. 

Church,  the  Catholic,  ceremonies 
of,  287;  force  of  fashion  in,  278, 
279;  intolerance  toward,  285- 
291;  philosophy  of,  267-270; 
power  of,  270;  property.  270, 
276;  re-establishment  of,  275; 
claims  of  spiritual  authority, 
258-260;  spiritual  eflScacy  of, 
261,  262;  authority  in  temporal 
affairs,  263-266;  suppression  of, 
and  confiscation  of  property, 
271,  272;  wealth  of,  281,  282. 

Church-building,  245-247. 

Church  of  the  Sacred  Heart,  351- 
354. 

Civil  War,  American,  240,  372. 

Clergy,  the,  249-252;  character  of, 
278;  influence  of  fashion  on,  278, 
279;  feudal  rights  of,  270; 
schools  controlled  by,  10,  11; 
spiritual  authority  of,  85. 

Cock,  the  Gallic,  346,  349. 

Coins,  device  on,  346,  349. 

Coligny,  254. 

College  de  France,  10,  23,  31. 

Colleges,  6,  12. 

Colleges,  American,  tradition  in, 
305. 

Comic  papers,  195-197. 

Communists,  the,  254. 

Concierge,  the.  48,  49. 


Concordat,  the,  285. 

Constitutional  monarchy,  the,  326. 

Conversation,  50,  51. 

Coup  d'Etat,  the,  326. 

Cours  Jermis   and   cours   publics, 

20. 
Crucifixes,     removed     from     law 

courts,  360,  361. 
Cure  of  the  Madeleine,  249,  252. 
Cur6  of  Les  Saintes  Maries,  251. 

Degrees,  university,  10-19. 

Democracy,  American,  363,  370, 
371,  373;  French,  363-365,  371; 
principles  of  a  true,  373-375. 

Dhaleine,  M.,  15. 

Dijon,  356. 

Dinner-parties,  50. 

Directors  of  education,  4-6,  8,  34. 

Dissensions,  188. 

Divorce,  165-168. 

Doctor,  degree  of,  15-19,  30. 

Dolet,   Etienne,  356. 

Dossier,  the,  9,  34. 

Dowry,  the,  reasons  for,  115-117, 
120;  inheritance  rights  in,  118, 
119. 

Dramatists,  58. 

Dreyfus  affair,  the,  176-180;  Zo- 
la's part  in,  358,  359. 

Duels,  162,  163. 

Dumas,  Alexandre,  231. 

Dumas,  Alexandre,  the  younger, 
169,  232-234. 

Duty,  conjugal  and  domestic,  136- 
142;  French  ideal  of,  144;  so- 
cial, 296. 

Duval,  Jean,  358,  359. 

Ecclesiastical  authority,  claims  of, 
^  258-260. 

Ecole  Libre  des  Sciences  Politiques, 
^  10,  23. 

Ecole  Normale,  10,  18,  27. 
Education,    primary,    secondary, 
and  higher,  4,  6,  12;    religious. 


INDEX 


385 


39;  French  and  American  con- 
ceptions of,  201-203. 

Educational  system,  centralized, 
3  et  seq.;  difiFerences  between 
French  and  American,  5,  13. 

Eiflfel  Tower,  350. 

Empire,  the,  reactionary  system 
of,  319;  323,  324,  332;  fall  of 
the  Second,  327,  339,  340. 

England,  national  tradition  of,  372. 

English,  books,  204;  ideal  of  can- 
dor, 150;  literatm^,  198,  199; 
scholarship,  45. 

Environment  and  individual  varia- 
tion, 212-219. 

Fact  and  system,  174-182. 

Faculties  of  higher  instruction, 
four,  6,  7. 

Faith,  256. 

Family,  the,  interest  in,  101-104; 
unity  of,  105-109;  structure  of, 
111,  112;  conception  of  as  prime 
social  fact,  111-114;  domestic 
hierarchy  in,  113,  114;  affection 
for,  120;  the  foyer,  122-126;  a 
private  social  organism,  126; 
love  of  parents  and  children,  127; 
interest  in  affairs  of  relations, 
128-130;  a  partnership,  144. 

Family  life,  charm  of,  126-128. 

Figaro,  301. 

Folk-tales,  222. 

Force  in  the  Revolution  and  the 
Empu-e,  323,  324. 

Foyer,  the  word,  121;  foreign  idea 
of,  122;  true  meaning  of,  122- 
124;  differences  distinguishing  it 
from  English  home,  125,  126. 

Prance,  composite  nature  of,  152, 
153. 

Francis  I,  347. 

Franklin,  307-309. 

Freemasons,  the,  284,  286. 

Free-thinkers,  258,  283;  intoler- 
ance of,  285,  291. 


French,  the,  foreigners'  impressions 
of,  192  et  seq.;  national  char- 
acter, 62-67,  82,  149  et  seq., 
155-190;  personal  appearance, 
154,  155;  effect  of  historical  ex- 
perience on  temperament,  328- 
331 ;  temperament  intellectually 
considered,  295. 

Friendship,  101-109. 

Fimeral  customs,  104. 

Gambetta,  355. 

German  scholarship,  44,  45. 

Girl,  normal  position  of  French, 

131,  132. 
Government,  six  systems  of,  330, 

331;  national  persistency  under 

changes  in,  334-337;   see  Third 

Republic. 

Halevy,  252. 

Harvard  University,  1,  19. 

Hawthorne,  thesis  on,  15. 

Henry  IV,  325. 

History,  teaching  of  French,  366, 
367. 

Home,  French  equivalents  for  the 
word,  121;  distinguished  from 
the  foyer,  125,  126. 

Hotel  Cama valet,  museum  in,  313. 

Houses,  Parisian,  48. 

Hugo,  Victor,  355. 

Human  nature,  philosophies  con- 
cerning, 267-270. 

Inheritance,  rights  of,  117-119. 
Inscriptions,  republican,  347. 
Inspectors,  university,  8,  34. 
Institute,  the,  88,  91. 
Intellect,  the  French,  295. 

Jeanne  d'Arc,  183-186. 
Jesuits,  the,  283. 
Jews,  the,  257,  261. 

Kings,  divine  right  of,  332. 


386 


INDEX 


Laborers,  imskilled«  95;  skilled, 
96-98. 

Lafayette,  303,  304,  307,  355. 

Lauvri^rc,  M.,  15. 

Lectures,  public,  20,  21;  method 
of  conducting,  23,  24. 

Leech,  John,  154. 

Legion  of  Honor,  the,  86-88. 

Lemot,  sculptor,  315. 

Liberty,  American  and  French 
ideas  of,  304;  307. 

Libraries,  23. 

LicenciS,  degree  of,  14,  30. 

Lille,  clerical  prejudices  of,  38,  39. 

Literature,  French,  addressed  to 
mature  public,  200,  203;  char- 
acters in,  215;  discussions  of, 
216-218;  impressions  derived 
from,  197,  198,  239;  problem  of 
individual  impulse  and  social 
surroundings,  212-219;  purpose 
recreation  and  amusement,  224- 
226;  not  representative  of 
French  life.  192  et  aeq.,  222, 
234,  236-238;  finished  style  in, 
203,  204;  conventions  of  style, 
205-207. 

Louis  XIV,  298,  314,  315.  325. 

Louis  XVI,  328. 

Louis  Napoleon,  326. 

Louis  PhiUppe,  75,  340.  376,  377. 

Louvre,  the,  355. 

LycSes,  6,  12. 

Lyons,  statue  of  Louis  XIV  at, 
814;  357,  358. 

Madeleine,  the,  249,  252. 

Maitre  de  conferences,  17,  30. 

Manners,  conventions  of,  205-208. 

Maps,  educational,  5. 

Marie  Antoinette,  300,  301. 

Marriage,  between  classes,  76; 
difference  in  French  and  Ameri- 
tan  ideals  of,  130  et  seq.;  duties, 
186-142;  French  law  concern- 
ing, 132,  133. 


Martjrrs,  Christian,  253,  254. 
Maupassant,  Guy  de,  209,  210. 
Memoirs,  writers  of,  58. 
Men,  French,  140,  141;  duties  of, 

223,  224;   conversation  of.  148, 

227. 
Metz,  surrender  of,  376. 
Middle  class,  the,  see  Bourgeois. 
Minister  of  Public  Instruction,  3, 

4,  6. 
Ministry  of  Public  Instruction,  8, 

4,  7-9,  34. 
Moli^re,  66. 

Montmartre,  church  on,  851,  852. 
Monuments  to  Republicans  and 

heroes  of  Revolution,  355. 
Museum,  Municipal,  313. 

Names  of  streets  and  places, 
changes  in,  356-359. 

Napoleon  I,  75;  religious  system 
under,  275-277;  compared  with 
Caesar,  319,  320;  his  civic  work, 
320;  reason  for  failure,  321,  822; 
334. 

Napoleon  III,  327.  344,  345. 

Newspapers.  American.  235-237. 

Nolhac,  Monsieur  de.  301. 

Notre  Dame,  253. 

Novelists,  58. 

Novels,  197. 

Orleanist  princes,  827,  345,  876, 
377. 

Pailleron,  214. 

Pantheon,  the,  272-274. 

Parents  and  children,  love  of,  109- 
111,  120,  127. 

Paris,  17,  18,  30-32,  36,  37,  67; 
dominance  of,  154;  most  attrac- 
tive capital,  193,  194;  under 
Second  Empire,  248;  828,  829, 
349-352. 

Payne,  John  Howard,  121. 

Philosophy,  171-175. 


INDEX 


387 


Plays,  197;  criticism  of,  216-218. 

Poe,  thesis  on,  15. 

Poetic  license,  219. 

Political,  controversy,  240;  tradi- 
tions, 331-334. 

Politicians,  341. 

Politics,  the  Church  in,  263  et  seq. 

"Prelude,"  Wordsworth's,  310, 
311. 

Professors,  28-33;  normal  career 
of,  30,  31;  politeness  among, 
29;  promotions  of,  31-34. 

Property,  right  of  disposal  of,  by 
wUl,  117-120. 

Prosperity,  national,  341,  342. 

Protestants,  257,  260,  261;  preju- 
dices of,  286. 

Prussia,  328. 

Rabutin,  Bussy,  297-300. 

Rectors,  University,  4-8,  34. 

Reign  of  Terror,  the,  334. 

Relics  of  saints,  251. 

Religion,  meaning  of,  242-244; 
expressed  in  architecture,  245- 
247;  wars  of,  254-256;  consti- 
tution of,  under  Napoleonic  sys- 
tem, 275-277;  suppressed  by 
Revolution,  312,  313. 

Religious,  controversy,  240;  origin 
of  diflBculties,  256;  education, 
39;  evolution,  244;  intolerance, 
285-291;  significance  of  the 
word,  242-244. 

Rene,  King,  251. 

RepubUc,  see  Third  Republic. 

Restoration,  the,  323-326;  epi- 
gram concerning  temper  of,  324, 
325. 

Revolution,  the,  American  influ- 
ence on,  303-308;  temper  of  its 
origin  and  its  course,  310,  311; 
destruction  of,  312-314;  effect 
of,  on  French  temperament,  294, 
333;  ideals  of,  332,  333;  intol- 
erance, result,  331,  333;  juvenile 


spirit  of,  315,  316;  true  life  of 
nation  undisturbed  by,  334-337; 
memory  and  traditions  of,  292, 
323,  346;  phantasmagoric  char- 
acter of,  317;  philanthropic  im- 
pulse of,  309-311;  philosophy  of, 
267-270;  reconciliation  of  royal- 
ist and  revolutionary,  318,  319, 
321-324;  suppression  of  religion, 
312;  results  social  and  political, 
292;  traditional  systems  of  gov- 
ernment and  society  irreconcila- 
ble yath  fact,  296-302,  323. 

Revolution  of  1830,  325. 

RighU  of  Man,  294,  302,  303, 
311, 

Rohan,  Cardinal  de,  300. 

Royalists,  traditions  of,  332,  333; 
344,  345. 

Samt  Bernard,  356. 

St.  Germain,  Chateau  of,  347,  348. 

Saintes  Maries,  Les,  251. 

Savoy,  352. 

Scholarship,  most  important  cen- 
tre of  French,  4;  influence  of 
German  and  English,  44,  45; 
influence  of  French,  45. 

School-children,  French,  41;  com- 
pared with  American,  42. 

Schools,  primary  and  secondary, 
4,  6,  12,  40,  41;  private,  10; 
Catholic,  38,  39. 

Second  Republic,  377. 

Sevigne,  Madame  de,  313.  ^ 

Social  conventions,  American  and 
French,  210. 

Social  customs:  making  acquain- 
tances, 52;  conversation,  50,  51; 
dinner-parties,  50;  dress,  70; 
paying  visits,  47-49;  reception 
of  Americans,  52,  53. 

Social  ideals,  99,  296. 

Social  life,  habits  governing,  212- 
215. 


388 


INDEX 


Social  precision  of  conduct,  49, 
207.  208. 

Social  regularity,  strength  of,  237. 

Society,  three  phases  of,  82. 

Sorbonne,  the,  1,  15, 18,  22,  31,  36. 

Sovereignty,  332,  334. 

Street  names,  35^-359. 

Students,  French,  24-28;  com- 
pared with  American,  27,  35; 
high  standards  of,  43,  44. 

Style,  precision  and  finish  of  liter- 
ary, 203-207. 

System  and  fact,  174-182. 

Taine,  monument  to,  opposed, 
292-294. 

Talleyrand,  300. 

Teaching,  thoroughness  of,  40,  41. 

Theses,  15;  defence  of,  16,  17. 

Third  Republic,  the,  origin  of,  328, 
338,  339,  343,  344;  stability  of, 
339-341,  345;  efficiency  of,  341- 
343;  based  on  tradition  of  Revo- 
lution, 346-348;  a  dominant 
political  party,  348,  349;  three 
rival  factions  in,  344-349;  in 
reactionary  hands,  353;  clerical 
spirit  in,  353,  354;  anticlerical 
spirit  in,  under  extreme  parti- 
sanship, 355-361;  system  new 
and  consistent,  362;  principles 
those  of  theoretical  democracy, 
362-365;  antagonisms  in,  368, 
369;  hope  of  broader  democ- 
racy in,  369-379. 

Ticknor,  George,  329. 

Titles,  75,  76. 


Traditions,  political,  331-334. 
Travellers,  tales  of,  192-195,  197. 
Truth,  187,  188. 

Universities,  anticlerical,  7,  34, 
37-39;    courses   of  instruction, 

20,  21;  degrees  conferred  by,  10- 
19;  points  of  difference  from 
American  and  English,  5,  13; 
control  of  education,  6;  four 
faculties  in,  6,  7;  independence 
of,  5;  inspection  and  record 
system,  8,  9,  34;  quality  of  in- 
struction, 34,  35;  professors  of, 
28-33;  provincial,  34-39;  rec- 
tors of,  4-8,  34;  social  duties  in, 

21,  22;  social  relations,  54;  stu- 
dents in,  24-28;  systematic 
nature  of,  2,  3;  lack  of  local  tra- 
dition, 35,  36. 

University  of  Paris,  4,  5. 

Vice-rector  of  University  of  Paris, 

4,5. 
Visiting,  47-49;  cards,  83-85. 

War  of  1870,  376. 

Wars  of  religion,  254-256. 

Women,  French,  in  higher  educa- 
tion, 14;  characteristics  of,  138, 
139;  in  Uterature,  208-210;  dif- 
ferent ideals  of,  210,  211;  224, 
225. 

Wordsworth,  his  "Prelude,"  310, 
311. 

Zola,  Emile,  357,  358. 


